Ahead of the curve. Amber Crain and Danny Lackey founded the When The Sun Hits blog back in 2010, based on a shared love of this sound, this music. At the time, it was rare to find a credible news source devoted to shoegaze and dream pop, and well before the current spate of reunion tours. Amber hosted the "When The Sun Hits" radio program on Strangeways Radio from August […]
If you've followed us at all over the past year, you know we're pretty keen on Sheer, a group of upstarts making a beautiful ruckus from Simi Valley to L.A. One of their several singles, "Skin", even charted in last year's "Best Of" tracks list. But it's a new year, it's a new day, it's a new life (or something to that effect), Sheer is readying the release of their […]
2015 marks the ten-year anniversary of A Shoreline Dream. Founded in the mid 'aughts, it was a challenging time for richly textured, moody music. Post Rock was starting to come into its own, but, with few exceptions, shoegaze wasn't really a happening thing. But for a decade, A Shoreline Dream's mad alchemy and cinematic landscapes have been a constant; a foundation rock in the resurgence of the sound. With the […]
Two musical projects, begun decades ago, thousands of miles apart. Suddenly two very impressive talents meet over the vast interwebs, and begin a beautiful collaboration. We interviewed Dan Ballek of Angel Falls (St. Paul, Minnesota), and Paul Lopez of Spell 336 (Central California), to talk a little about this amazing joint effort. Press 'play', and read what they had to say about this particularly dreamy collaboration. If the Cocteau Twins-esque […]
Not a lot you can learn from the Facebook page of Lust, save that they're "A band from Toronto", and their preferred genre is "Fuzz". Peel back a layer or two, and you'll find that one of the prime movers behind Lust is Scott Downes, one of the primary members of Iris, who blew the doors off last year with "Fix Me" and "Ragdoll". But this isn't that. What is […]
Plaintive lead lines played over crunchy power chords. Cavernous male/female tandem vocals. Carefully crafted soft/loud dynamics. Hints of heartbreak and loss. We first heard the debut single "Spin The Room" from Reverse at the end of April, plugged it into New Tracks Weekend, and it graduated to regular rotation only two weeks after. Texas' Reverse are making a BIG sound that transcends any "regional" tags. While some comparisons could be […]
Airs have been popularly assumed to be many things: aesthetically sloppy, possibly songless, certainly joyless, part-time Twitter trolls. ALL OF YOUR ASSUMPTIONS ARE WRONG. Chris Broyles & Co. kicked everything up a notch with their (allegedly torturous) L.A. Blues (Part Time Punks Session). Now on the eve of their exceptionally crunchy and amazingly tuneful Apart EP, it's probably best you reassess your opinion. While there have been lineup changes and […]
The third and final installment of our series on the epic Roogaze festival in Melbourne on May 9th (event link: Roogaze 2015) features our chats with Kigo, Miners and Contrast. If you're just catching up, check out our previous installments here and here. As we've described before, Roogaze is the largest shoegaze / dream pop themed event of its kind since LA's Shoegaze Fest three years ago, and featuring heavyweights […]
Part Two in a series... Melbourne, Australia hosts the event of the year in Roogaze 2015, featuring the best and the brightest in the Australian shoegaze and dream pop scenes. We dug for answers about this incredible event, and got responses from Blush Response, Luna Ghost, Day Ravies, and Bloodhounds on My Trail. If you've heard of every one of these bands, it may be because they're heavy rotation staples […]
