Slowly - Distance (2022)

It's Charlie Berger's third album already; three years after Reveal (and a year since his fantastic EP Reverse), the Canadian artist showed his new work called Distance and it's as noisy and delicate as you can imagine.

The album is obviously impacted by the social distance issues we had to globally deal with for some years now.  Berger, being clearly a very nice guy, says: "I hope these songs might somehow help bring me a little closer to everyone who hears them, even if just for a few moments. I like that idea. It gives me some nice, warm feelies". And this is exactly what we get from his music: the vocals and the unassuming but very fitting music combined feel simply intimate and warm. This is the dream pop we needed for the incoming autumn moths.

But the lyrics are not always very uplifting. More like there's always a certain dose of sadness and melancholia, as if there's no way of coming back to what we had before the pandemics. As in A Ghost: "Heard your voice/ From a distance/ Was it the wind/ Or just my memory?" But, to be honest, is there really any true answer to how to live now?

Distance costs 4.5 EUR (6 CAD).

Slowly - Reverse (2021)

Check: A Ghost

Country: Canada

Genre: dark dream pop

Label: Lossleader Records

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:spotify:

With Hidden Noise - Nowhere (2022)

Charlie Berger is of course known as With Hidden Noise and Slowly - with both of the projects appeared on this blog already. The Canadian artist came back at the beginning of the year with another great album called Nowhere.

This "collection of songs contemplating love, loss, life and death" is filled with ultimately slowcore music. Its slow pace and mood-creating abilities definitely fit the self-reflecting theme of the album. Especially with Berger's dreamy, properly dispersed vocals flowing just above the soundscape like an autumn fog above the ground. The theme is no joke and the artist doesn't beat around the bush either; already the first song brings up the most important question in any human being's life: "Oh my god, in heaven/ What will happen to me when I’m gone?" and then it gets only more melancholic with the theme of loss (in friendship - Two Ships and in relationship - my favourite track here Back to Me) being perhaps even sadder than the theme of death - at least you don't have to live through the latter.

As always, this intimate slowcore atmosphere makes me think of Raised by Swans with similar level of melancholy and emotions enchanted in dreamy ballads. Ballads that have a huge potential to fill broken hearts with tons of melancholia.

Nowhere costs 3 EUR (4 CAD).

Slowly - Reverse (2021)

With Hidden Noise - Beside the Sea (2019)

Check: Back to Me

Country: Canada

Genre: dreamy slowcore

Label: Lossleader Records

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:spotify:

Slowly - Reverse (2021)

Slowly is the moniker of Charlie Berger, also known as With Hidden Noise (and with this project he appeared on the blog two years ago). As Slowly, he makes very dreamy and airy indie pop with this intimate mood characteristic for solo projects. We can hear that on his new EP called Reverse.

The EP consists of polished versions of tracks recorded when the artist created his last album Reveal, back in 2019. Now they function as an aperitif before his third long play that's coming soon. The four tracks re made of lively music in which there's a lot of going on (psychedelic guitars, interesting drums, a lot of dreamy haze) and which make the whole compositions pretty complex for a dream pop. I like how it works in Watermark with its lengthy guitar parts that stand out within the ethereal whole (and those changes on the quiet/loud spectrum, I'm a fan of those). And the airiness is no doubt created mostly with the soft and dreamy vocals that, on the other hand, don't lose anything from the melodies' catchiness - I like how catchy this dream pop is and how easily the artist seems to achieve the balance between the ethereal and the melodic.

Reverse costs 2 CAD.

With Hidden Noise - Beside the Sea (2019)

Check: Watermark 

Country: Canada

Genre: psychedelic dream pop

Label: Lossleader Records

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:spotify: