AprilBlue – “In Bloom”

Like many, I suspect, I found my way to Tokyo’s AprilBlue via the fallout from the disbanding of For Tracy Hyde in early 2022. One of the main questions from distraught fans of the Japanese shoegaze heroes was “what can we listen to now?”, and the easy answer was the (many) other projects from chief […]

Blankenberge – “Escape”

Russian shoegaze masters Blankenberge have been teasing their fourth album since last September, but while the samples of the new record have been expectedly euphoric, they’ve been very light on details about the new album itself. Last weekend, they released their third preview of the new record along with very subtle visualizer, but again resisted […]

Cocteau Twins – “Evangeline”

Because it amuses me, here’s a song with the same name but otherwise completely unrelated the one posted Monday. “Evangeline” was the first non-4AD release by Cocteau Twins, coming out in September 1993 and previewing Four-Calendar Cafe, their first album for Fontana. It was also a notable record for being the first where Elizabeth Fraser’s […]

Blurred City Lights / Utopia-Dystopia

Nagoya dreampop duo Blurred City Lights came just about out of nowhere last year – okay, out of their bedroom studios – with their full-length debut 天使のいない街で that ended up with a highly-coveted position on my 2024 year-end list. It did this on the strength of its vision, songwriting, and managing the impressive task of […]

She’s Green – “Graze”

As recently as last November, when She’s Green came onto my radar, the Minneapolis five-piece looked to be another regional genre favourite, known to locals and a handful of subreddits. Now it looks like the word might be just a little more out, with their being attached to an international (well, two countries) tour with […]