Cocteau Twins / Twinlights

I’ve been filling a few longstanding holes in my Cocteau Twins collection, most recently getting the Lullabies To Violaine, Vol. 1 compilation of all their 4AD-era EPs – easy enough, as it’s still in print in CD – but the second volume, which covers their Fontana years but was also released by 4AD, is somewhat […]

Slowwves – “SWS”

Though newcomers to the scene – that’s the Thai shoegaze scene, but music in general – with a discography just four songs deep, Bangkok’s Slowwves have already shown themselves to be a name to watch. The bio from their Bandcamp (which has only one track to stream) details their origins as: Peem (guitar) got to know Jill […]

Blankenberge – “New Rules”

A lot has happened since Saint Petersburg’s Blankenberge released their 2021 album Everything – Russia invaded Ukraine, the band relocated to somewhere/anywhere else (their last publicly announced whereabouts was Serbia), and I fell in love with their music. Not necessarily in that order. But given the extenuating circumstances, it’s understandable that it took the band […]

Fazerdaze – “Cherry Pie”/”Bigger”

Fazerdaze’s return to active duty appears to be complete; following a post-Morningside retreat she took tentative steps back to music in 2022 with the Break! EP and a return to touring at home and abroad in 2023. This year, she committed to opening up the entirety of Pond’s North American tour this November, implying that […]

Deary – “Selene”

Deary have been canny enough about the timing of their new releases that I don’t think, “oh I just posted them a couple weeks ago” – it’s been over a month since they unveiled their last new single “The Moth” so I’m totally fine with shining the spotlight on the follow up, “Selene”. Of the […]

Moon In June – “Slowdive”

Tokyo’s Moon In June may have been born into shoegaze – their 2020 EP 海鳴り doesn’t spare the reverb, distortion, or glide guitar – but they’ve grown through 2022’s extended player Evergreen towards last year’s debut full-length ロ​マ​ン​と​水​色​の​街 (“Romance and Soft Blue City”) to reside in a neighbourhood where power pop and dreampop intersect, and […]

Lesssugär / Internet Teenage Lover

I’ve covered shoegaze and dreampop from more than a few Asian locales, but so far nothing from Thailand – let’s fix that! Lesssugär is a four-piece who released their debut mini-album Internet Teenage Lover last year, and as introductions go, it’s an impressive one. They hew more towards the dreampop end of things, favouring cleaner […]