deary – “The Moth”

Having had a brilliant 2023, London dreampoppers deary have thus far devoted this year to touring their debut EP and releases have been limited to some remixes and live tracks. But they’ve finally returned with some new material in the form of “The Moth”, a new single that continues the campaign of resurrecting the ’90s […]

Softcult – “Haunt You Still”

There’s no interesting “how I found this local band” story for Softcult; the sister-duo of Phoenix and Mercedes Arn-Horn are the biggest local name for shoegaze right now, though if you’re being accurate they’re from Kitchener, not Toronto (me too!) and while some of their catalog definitely checks all the genre boxes, they could just […]

the neverminds – “melt”

And now, strange ways to discover local bands, part two. It shouldn’t be any surprise I follow a number of Japanese shoegaze concert promoters on socials; I find it a good way to discover new acts from that part of the world. Recently, I’d noticed a series of posts and ads from one of them, […]

Miki Berenyi Trio – “Vertigo”

Having made their recorded debut with the appropriately transitional Lush cover a couple months ago, Miki Berenyi Trio have offered up their first taste of original music with “Vertigo”, which previews a full-length album the details of which are still forthcoming. Of the track, Berenyi says: ‘Vertigo’ is about anxiety and the efforts to talk […]

Hitsujibungaku – “Ghost”

Despite being probably the heaviest rotation artist for me in the past year and having discovered them through my investigations of Japanese dreampop, I’ve not written anything about Hitsujibungaku because, well, I don’t really think of them as dreampop. As I mentioned in my 2023 wrap up I’d grant you adjacent, maybe, as Moeka Shiotsuka […]

plums – “ナンバ”

From the relatively familiar to the new , Hokkaido’s Plums, who despite being wholly un-Googleable, have put out a number of excellent EPs of fuzzy power pop since 2019, including a new one just this past February in Life. At least those exist on streaming, and they’ve got a YouTube channel so folks can stumble […]