Vicious Blossom - You Breathe Inside of Me (2021)

Nate Zerbe's the leading force behind Vicious Blossom, a noisy and shoegazy project hailing from Pennsylvania. Its very coarse sound should appeal to any fan of the noisegaze as played by Ceremony among others. The band's second album, You Breathe Inside of Me, has just been released by Wind Crest Records.

The album has been created in cooperation with EJ Hagen, guitarist of Highspire, bit obscure from my perspective local shoegaze legends. It is opened by the exceptionally noisy Luminous. In this track it's easy to track inspirations not only to Ceremony but also to some shoegaze icons, including My Bloody Valentine. However, the noisy vibe is toned down already in the second track, very ethereal and dream pop-like May. This short album makes the best out of the two faces of the gaze,  Carrie is again the soft one and it's being followed by a very noisy Goth Girl. The album is set in a tone that's not super widely represented these days so it may just be what some listeners look for.

You Breathe Inside of Me costs 7 USD.

Check: Luminous

Country: Pennsylvania, US

Genre: noisy shoegaze

Label: Wind Crest Records

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Moa - Collider (2021)

Moa is a new band out of North Carolina, who, as for now, is best known for their song being featured in Netflix documentary Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. They have just released an impressive debut album though and it should be said that Collider sounds like a perfect blend of some of my favourite music genres.

First of all, their "deep, dark, moody music with plenty of space to lose one's self" clearly takes a lot from trip-hop. Those obscure, gloomy vibes that are often associated with the genre take Moa's sound where it resonates best. But there's more into the music than just darkness, it's warm and intimate, there's some spoken word that strengthens this feeling but often gives way to the vocalist's sweet and airy voice. It is always courted by the omnipresent but rather subtle electronics sounds the blinking of which does to the whole music what stars do to the night sky.

Slightly other vibes present Ratstar with its heavy-sounding drums, the utterly lullaby-like Gamelan and finally the total melt-down in the night-like atmosphere of Circus City with its trumpets sounds. Dreamy and warm, like a night in bed.

Collider costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Ratstar

Country: North Carolina, US

Genre: dreamy trip-hop

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Still Corners - The Last Exit (2021)

The Tessa Murray and Greg Hughes duo is by far one of my favourite dream pop projects with their ethereal ambiance and very exotic vibes in the backgrounds. Their fifth album has just been released and, no surprises here, The Last Exit is awesome.

It's not easy to have one's own unique style when creating indie dreamy pop, it's just so many bands that do that. Still Corners certainly have that. Those bossa nova, tropical music vibes are always all over the place, no wonder that among tags describing The Last Exit is "desert noir". It's audible especially in Crying with its desert atmosphere only strengthened by the western-like whistling. Very familiar sounds, ones I loved on Slow Air, come back in White Sands and what a comeback it is.

Murray's vocals, again, as always, fit the atmosphere in the best way possible. Deep and heavy on one hand, very airy and beautiful on the other - the counterweight to lighter and swinging music. Although this is not always the case either, as in more experimental Bad Town or a tiny bit heavier Mystery Road. This fits the album's overall theme being, surprise, surprise, the desert and its obscure beauty. Hughes suggests that by saying "We found something out there in the desert – something in the vast landscapes that went on forever." This something is now perfectly audible on the album (and also draws an interesting parallel to another dream pop charmers who chose this theme for their new album - Holy Motors).

The Last Exit costs 7 GBP.

Still Corners - Slow Air (2018) EN

Check: The Last Exit

Country: UK

Genre: tropical dream pop

Label: Wrecking Light

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The Welton Shipwreck - A Fire in a Field of Snow (2021)

Two artists from UK, Stu Head a.k.a. Stooj and John Culkin a.k.a. jculkin, make up The Welton Shipwreck, a lo-fi, electronically-infused project that strikes with awe with their ability to create catchy tunes like those on the debut album called A Fire in a Field of Snow.

They call themselves the "purveyors of fine psychedelic folk-rock" and indeed, the amount of psychedelia in their music is what strikes most. It's clear that the project does not aim for perfect quality of the sound but it's very much not important (also, it may be because the album was recorded online between Scotland and Yorkshire). This music is all about melodies and catchiness without being pop-like lazy. They are curious and not afraid to explore, the choruses they create consist of many layers of sounds and vocals and they are made so it works together as a whole.

Already Unspent High, the album's first track after intro, shows that. The chorus here is simple and short but it's looped in such a mesmerizing way that it just stays in the head. Even in the calmer ballads, there's constant buzz in the backgrounds that makes the compositions full of life and energy. That's some psychedelic vibes I like.

A Fire in a Field of Snow costs 7 GBP.

Check: Unspent High

Country: UK

Genre: psychedelic indie rock

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Jocelyn Packard - Nothing Is Solid (2020)

With the name taken from David Lynch's mythos, the Polish Jocelyn Packard have a little choice but to create mysterious and dark music. The duo's second album is called Nothing Is Solid and contains an interesting blend of ambient and post-rock vibes. This release is already three months old but is so intriguing I can't go past it without posting something on my blog.

The album is said to be a musical type of a diary with the music corresponding to the artist's life experience and gradually "growing out of them". It is expressed with lazy noise poring over form the speakers for long minutes. This guitar ambient with traces of very slow, very climactic post-rock would perfectly fit Twin Peak's darker scenes of its unnerving mystery (Kate Song (Jet Fuel Perfume)!). BUT as it seems, the artists are not very fond of Twin Peaks-oriented similes when describing their music so perhaps let's stop here. Although the noisy psychedelia that in visual form defines Lynch's works, truly lives here in its audio persona. And, of course, there are references to other Lynch-like weird pieces of culture like James Joyce's infamous Finnegans Wake. 

Nothing Is Solid costs 2.5 EUR (10 PLN).

Check: Kate Song (Jet Fuel Perfume)

Country: Poland

Genre: noisy ambient

Label: Opus Elefantum

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Slow Grave - Foam (2021)

Slow Grave is a project revolving around Carlos Rosa, an artist from Puerto Rico, with some interesting, very rough and guitar take on post-rock. This year's Foam is also their debut album and one fans should give a go.

The band's music is definitely guitar-oriented. There's little room for anything else and, as usual for this kind of approach to post-rock, it results in sudden changes of melody and pace and, most importantly, this chaotic energy typical for math-rock artists. The cooperation between guitars results in complicated and complex structures in which every sound has its own place. I'd say the tracks could be longer so there's more time for the compositions to develop but this method with shorter ones also has its charm, a bit more punky and energy-focused in that way.

Although there are also calmer tracks like Morningtide. The range of the band's styles is quite impressive, it's good to have the ability to manage all sorts of guitar moods and I like the most the songs that combine the most of it. Like Red Coast or coming close to post-metal Voyager. And of course the album's perfect ending in Lockne, the track that's... last but one.

Foam costs 10 USD.

Check: Voyager

Country: Puerto Rico

Genre: guitar post-rock

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Radio Supernova - Takaisin (2021)

Finnish "mansegaze," or particularly psychedelic shoegaze, is back with the Tampere-based Radio Supernova releasing their second album with which they prove the psychedelic rock scene is theirs to take it. Takaisin includes at least as good quality music as it was with the band's debut.

This is the kind of colourful shoegaze that preserves the noise music/soothing (but also, paradoxically, punkish) vocals ratio but at the same time is more focused on the psychedelia of the rich music layer, creating a guitar-based maze that engages the audience with ease. It's also a fast album with Tammikuu already setting the pace that is only built on by songs like Väkivaltaa that is simply created to dance to. Even if the dance is wide and chaotic. On the other hand, you can hardly say the music here lacks atmosphere. The guitar sounds create a layer that is impenetrable and thick as hell, and also that combines loudness with melody, especially in the longer tracks like Kadoksiin and in the piano-based noise of Utopia.

The album is a good continuation of the debuting Tähtiin. Same vibes, same atmosphere but at the same time no feeling of repetitiveness. No wonder that the album's title translates to "Again". Also, no wonder, the album's one of the best scoring release of 2021 as far according to Rate Your Music.

Takaisin costs 6 EUR.

Radio Supernova - Tähtiin (2019)

Check: Utopia 

Country: Finland

Genre: psychedelic shoegaze

Label: Soit Se Silti

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