Valotihkuu & Dynastor - Midnight Fairytales (2020)

This is a throwback to the end of the last year when DRONARIVM released this beautiful album that's the result of collaboration between the Russian artist Denis Davydov a.k.a. Valotihkuu and the Dutchman Maurits Nieuwenhuis, better known as Dynastor. Midnight Fairytales are exactly what the title suggests.

It is also a reference to Valotihkuu's previous album, Winter Lullabies. Still, it means that what we find on the album is both a bit dark and very much dreamy. The synthy textured backgrounds are so dense that they create a heavy layer upon which some beautiful sparks of keys and electronics thrive which is so beautifully done in Creature Comforts but also spilling forward to all of the tracks. This really feels like a fairy tale, the darkness of which is only comfortable and the message comforting. And, what's most important, the world of which is beautiful like the music here.

Also, the Bandcamp's description of the album really deserves a whole paragraph all for itself, it's such a perfect summary of what we hear: "Warm, flickering candle light illuminates grandfather's face as he opens the book. Outside insects lullaby the deep dark sky, reflected in the water, a slight rustling through the leaves. You wrap yourself in your bedsheets, waiting for grandfather to start reading, you are ready to go on a journey. He winds up the music box, looks at you with a warm smile and starts reading".

Midnight Fairytales costs 6 EUR.

Check: Creature Comforts

Country: Russia/The Netherlands

Genre: dreamy soundscape

Label: DRONARIVM

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Leaving Time - Leaving Time (2021)

That's some under-the-radar stuff. Leaving Time, a band from Florida, have almost no place on-line to be found in but it doesn't stop them from creating some quality music. The one we can check out is the self-titled debut EP from the beginning of the year.

It consists of five tracks held in the atmosphere of dirty, lo-fi shoegaze slash noise pop. The guitars here are rough and plenty while the vocals dispersed and soothing. This is something for the fans of Crocodiles and Ceremony - a lot of rock'n'roll energy in the form of very noisy and very obscure spawn of the 90s. shoegaze. The whole thing sounds like a tribute to all the noisy legends, staying true to the genre's dogmas and lets the true fans enjoy the beautiful noise once again, this time thanks to the debutantes from States.

Leaving Time costs 5 USD.

Check: Drag

Country: Florida, US

Genre: lo-fi noise pop

Label: Tiger Records

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Sijosai - Rire Seul (2021)

Sijosai is a French band that combines traditional post-rock sound with various electronica-originating influences to create instrumental music that is lively and mould-breaking all the way through. It seems that they started making music back in 2014, but for their first longer release we had to wait until this year's album entitled Rire Seul.

They call their sound a hybrid of "sound and visual textures, creating an aspirating atmosphere, refined and dense at the same time". To achieve that, the post-rock compositions are filled with electronic music or even ambient's bits and pieces to such a degree that the whole thing doesn't resemble post-rock at all. It's more of an experiment that balances the mood and the weirdness, reminding me very much of le-mol's music. For the most part, it is relatively slow and not very loud, it's more focused on the experiment itself than generating monumental atmosphere. It doesn't mean it's not enjoyable though, quite the opposite. There are some parts I especially love, like the glitchy and synth-heavy backgrounds in Xtzy, Pt. 4 or the heavy ambient vibes of the tracks towards the end of the album. Really interesting stuff.

Rire Seul costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Xtzy, Pt. 4 

Country: France

Genre: experimental electronic post-rock

Label: TeKoop Records / Tandori Records

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Лензвук - Монстр (2021)

The Russian band Лензвук had been releasing short singles for a while (I included their Глупые белые люди as one to check out back in 2019) before they finally released their first longer album. So here comes the EP called Монстр.

I revisited what I wrote back then and everything still seems legit: the Petersburg-based musicians make alternative rock with psychedelic and post-rock influences, mixing them with the vibes I always get from the Russians legends of Сплин. The very melodic vocals are also soften down a bit and thus they go a tiny bit towards what I would call dream rock. But at the same time, the way the songs and especially choruses are constructed, reminds me of post-punk songs - with Можно спасти as the best example. This only confirms how many different things influenced the band and what a rich music it is.

To further confirm that this is not just a random project taken from Bandcamp by coincidence, let's just mention that the last song features Sasha Galianov, the member of the Russian dance post-punk prodigies - Shortparis. 

Монстр costs 7 USD.

Check: Глупые белые люди

Country: Russia

Genre: psychedelic alt rock

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Raised by Swans - Raised by Swans Is the Name of a Man, Volume 1 (2021)

Eric Howden, the head and the soul of Raised by Swans, is an artist who, as I see it, managed to stay far away from the music mainstream but at the same time gathered the most devoted and emotionally invested bunch of fans around him. Personally, I find No Ghostless Place one of THE albums of my youth, one of the most formative releases to my music taste. After his third album, Howden disappeared for 7 years but he's back and the material on his newest album is as good as ever.

What's more important: it's everything the fans would expect. It's centered around the artist's uniquely sounding voice, the airiness of which set the atmosphere of his whole career. You can barely notice that Fortress Without Doors is from 2021 unlike, let's say, By an Ion. The vocals are accompanied by extremely subtle music. In fact, it's so subtle, the whole thing can be safely called ambient pop although it's made on live instruments and there's no, or next to no electronics. There's synths though in the backgrounds and I think the only change on the new album are those synth-oriented, delicately industrial or wavey vibes we hear.

But the most important thing are the emotions conveyed by Howden. Everybody who knows the project and has followed it on social media is aware of the delicate nature of Howden's psyche. They way he translates this into music is absolutely unbelievable. There's so much heart-brokenness and loneliness it could share with tens of other projects. The title of the album suggests some change though, I personally hope it means that the man is getting stronger, especially that it doesn't make his music less interesting or beautiful.

Raised by Swans Is the Name of a Man, Volume 1 costs 13 CAD.

Check: Firestorms /DCI

Country: Canada

Genre: dreamy slowcore

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Grande Loge - Mantras (2020)

Hailing from France, Grande Loge is a collective made of former members of the metal bands Malepeste and Tower of Silence, who turned towards highly spiritual and dark ambient music. Back in Decemeber they released one, long mesmerizing trip in the form of the album called Mantras.

Their music consists of folk-inspired chanting, dark airy ambient and mesmerizing tribal parts. This thick and extremely attractive atmosphere is also the result of the use of more or less exotic instruments like buzuki, nafar, shaman drums and tanpura, as well as mantras and a very unorthodox languages, namely Ancient Greek in Hekaten. When you listen to this album, there's always something that makes you say "no way they can get more mysterious" and then it does. The atmosphere also reaches further than just the music and strongly influences their appearance which means that their live gigs must be absolute madness. In a dark and spiritual way of course.

Warning! Mind this hilarious note from their FB: "We are a group of artists, not fucking freemasons!". And remember that!

Mantras costs 7 EUR.

Check: Hekaten

Country: France

Genre: tribal dark ambient

Label: Cyclic Law

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Cathedral Bells - Ether (2021)

When I first heard their single Dark Aura, I knew it's something big. And indeed, Ether makes a really good synthgazey dream pop concoction. And in my humble opinion, this album is actually a lot better than the debut and I couldn't not post about it here.

Their sound is based on very post-punk/synthpop synthesizers and generally flat sound that channel the stifling atmosphere of clubs in the 80s. as I imagine it. No wonder they call themselves as "born from the depths of obscure analog gems". On the other hand, the vocals are extremely airy with a strong taste for melodic singing. This makes the whole thing actually very lively and pretty much forcing the audience to dance with ease. And there's Dark Aura, a fantastic song that marries everything that's important in this music: extremely airy chorus, melodies, hazy atmosphere and post-punkish composition. That's some strong candidate for the dreamy hit of the year.

Ether costs 8 USD.

Check: Dark Aura

Country: Florida, US

Genre: dreamy synthgaze

Label: Spirit Goth Records

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Powder! Go Away - Jól (2021)

Powder! Go Away is a band hailing from Moscow, who is all about guitar noise in the post-rock form. They are on the stage for a decade now as their debut album Laika Still Wants Go Home was released in 2011. Now, perhaps to honor this anniversary, the Russians showed their fifth one called Jól.

I'm pretty sure the release in January came a bit too late as the album's title (Scandinavian for Yule) and the pagan-like symbol on its cover suggest that the main theme should be Christmas or at least what it was way back in the pre-Christian times. (That said, the Orthodox Church celebrates it later so maybe it's actually perfect.) Also the songs' titles are filled with folklore and its darker side with gloomy forests and witches all over the place. Their music, on the other hand, is not as dark really. There are some fragments but otherwise it's very much instrumental rock music with some even rock'n'roll fragments. To admire guitar skills rather than to drown in the atmosphere. With the exception of Sun Loop, the loopy ambient-like atmosphere of which is something I dig. And, of course, my favourite track here, the moody finisher in And the Sun Will Return.

Jól costs 5 USD.

Check: And the Sun Will Return

Country: Russia

Genre: guitar post-rock

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Zarathustar - Also sprach (2021)

I couldn't find much about this project, I know it's a man who makes both music and visual art (make sure to check his Instagram account for some psychedelically dark stuff!), who recently released his, probably, debut material in the form of an album called Also sprach.

Both the names of the project itself and the album are direct references to Friedrich Nietzsche and/or Richard Strauss legacy which immediately makes this music darker if you think about it. Also, nice play on words there! The music on the album is characterized with very, very subtle vocals hidden deep behind the rather noisy guitars. It is a solo project and it shows but most of the time the beautiful noise that's present here gives chills and storms ears covering any imperfectness. I especially like the tracks in which the artist let himself go and unleashed all the lo-fi noise he could and it sounds awesome (as it is the case in In My Life for example).

Also sprach costs 5 USD.

Check: In My Life

Country: Georgia, US

Genre: noisy dream pop

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Montana Wildhack - Summer (2020)

Montana Wildhack is a lovely band of artists from... virtually as far from Montana as you can be, from Australia's west coast and the city of Freemantle. I follow their dreamy music for a while now, they also appeared on the blog two years ago with an EP called Soak, now they are back with their newest EP Summer that works like a shot of ethereal vibes.

It also makes a nostalgia trip for those who live on the Northern hemisphere and miss summer (very fitting in the snowy Europe like now). Those hazy sounds are like reflections of the sun filling your eyes when walking in the trees. The music is set in a slow pace with heavily dreamy guitars and very dream pop-accurate vocals (both male and female) with this feeling of being garage-made or recorded live that makes it more exciting and intimate at the same time. Even when the album gets more indie rock-guitar-based and subtly noisy in Fast Country, the overwhelming feeling of the hazy trip is what defines it. Also, huge props for the spoken word ballad You Are Here ending the album, I love it.

Summer costs 7 AUD.

Montana Wildhack - Soak (2019) EN

Check: You Are Here

Country: Australia

Genre: dream pop/rock

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Whettman Chelmets - Eli Chen (2021)

Whettman Chelmets is an ambient/drone artist out of Missouri whose January's album, called Eli Chen brought as not only a good dose of dreamy soundscapes but also some more sophisticated thought behind it.

The album is another proof of the artist's interest in "the concept of Jungian archetypes" in the form of the, as far as I can say, example person called Eli Chen who works as a "solitary individual brought through a specific mythological gnostic travel through the archons and spaces above to bring themselves (and us) through the fullness of it all". This philosophical idea is brought by a range of drony soundscapes that combine the ambient's delicate electronica with post-rock's subtle guitar noises. And does it with such a grace, it is an honour to get half-asleep while listening to the whole thing.

Also, the musician created the album "in-between his daughter napping" which is a definite proof on its dreamy and oneiric properties.

Eli Chen costs 4 USD.

Check: Speaking to the Archons 

Country: Missouri, US

Genre: dreamy soundscape

Label: Collapsed Structures

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Voltar - Bestias (2021)

Voltar, the band from El Salvador, appeared on my blog years ago when they were releasing their second album. Their rough and powerful sound got only rougher and more powerful, but also better quality-wise, as this year's EP Bestias shows perfectly.

The EP "explores the condition of the human being as a beast that sustains an internal struggle between light and darkness". They do that with music that marries crushingly heavy, post-metal-like mighty guitars with elements of psychedelia, shoegaze and even dream pop. Especially the opening King of Light shows that with drums and guitars sounding like hits in your face while psychedelically dreamy vocals sound like borrowed from best moments of Kairon; IRSE!. This combination works so well throughout the whole album with the mesmerizing flow of Ritual that ends with an enormously satisfying finish, melodic Everything Is Full of Love (and it's not Bjork's cover) and the finishing noise of Bestias. Their sound really reminds me of the already mentioned Finns and I dig this comparison a lot.

Bestias costs 7.99 USD.

Voltar - Ven El Mundo Arder (2017) EN

Check: King of Light

Country: El Salvador

Genre: heavy psychedelic rock

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Crystal Canyon - Yours with Affection and Sorrow (2021)

Earlier this year, my attention was caught by Crystal Canyon's excellent single. I blogged already about them when they released their debut album back in 2018 so I knew what can be expected. And indeed, Yours with Affection and Sorrow makes a great example of classy and noisy dream pop release.

The albums is opened by the most ethereal moment in the very dream pop angelic Pollyanna as, although the whole release is kept in this tone, it is usually more guitar-based with more shoegaze-like fragments. Those come as soon as in the second track, Luminous with its heavy wall of sound in the chorus and Lynda Mandolyn's airy vocals put on top. This is a top-quality shoegaze there. There's quite a lot of mood changing as some tracks are very rock and roll in their dance nature (Boomerang) while others either noisy and heavy (fittingly crushing in Crush You) or simply heading towards indie pop ballads (Tender Waves). The whole album sounds like dream pop played by people who very well know what shoegaze is. And it shows.

Yours with Affection and Sorrow costs 8 USD.

Crystal Canyon - Crystal Canyon (2018) EN

Check: Luminous 

Country: Maine, US

Genre: shoegazing dream pop.

Label: Repeating Cloud

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Spoiwo - Martial Hearts (2021)

Two post-rock bands from Poland that were recently (and rightfully) hyped the most are Tides from Nebula and Besides, two very different approaches to the genre, the former focusing on electro-shoegaze and the latter on the atmospheric side of the music. And now there's the third one as Spoiwo are finally back with their second album on which they marry the two approaches in such a cool way.

Martial Hearts is a follow up to their debut from 2015, such a long time without any new music from them (and I mean ANY, there's nothing I know of besides the two albums). They changes their style a lot, and they are happy to admit it: "it is a huge amount of time – an era in our lives. The world is a difference place now, so are we, and so is our new album". Their new sound is very, very electronic. However, unlike Tides from Nebula, they use this synthetic sound to generate atmosphere that is heavy but also uplifting at the same time rather than shocking with heavy pace and loudness.

They can be extremely moody, as in the epic Two Mountains, a song that develops for a long time and reaches an unbelievably dense moment at the end, also thanks to the organ-like keys (and also containing beautiful vocals, very sad but also very much appealing to a listener's humanity core within). Afterwards, their music is strictly instrumental / electronic which the musicians are able to use in a monumental way (Riot Sons) or crushingly powerful (Verge) while the vocals come back for the heavy ballad of Wounds. I love every second of this album.

Martial Hearts costs 6 EUR.

Check: Two Mountains

Country: Poland

Genre: dark electronic post-rock

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Windermere - Unspoken / Unheard (2020)

The Danish Windermere haven't released any new album sine 2006 but somehow recently they are able to entertain us with their music again. After the live recording earlier last year, they released an unused material from after No One Winds, their last studio album. And Unspoken / Unheard makes a sad experience, showing how much hood music have we lost due to the band's inactivity.

Although they are more likely to be called a dream pop band, the new album is purely instrumental and filled with an exciting blend that could be easily called "dreamy post-rock". It is told to be "a bit rough around the edges", but, honestly, I have little idea what they are talking about. Instead, they are a great example of how well the dream pop's ethereal atmosphere can work with instrumental-only post-rock sounds. I bet there would have been lyrics and vocals put on top if it had been to be fully developed, but it really works like it is now.

Actually, it works exceptionally well in Untitled 2, in which the drone-like passages are given so much dream pop fantasy but at the same time preserve their mysterious atmosphere until they transform to a full-time post-rock composition. And when the whole thing dies slowly in the very much instrumental ambient of the fourth track, you can ask yourself a question, "how good their third album could be?".

Unspoken / Unheard costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Untitled 2

Country: Denmark

Genre: dreamy post-rock

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Michael Peter Olsen - Yearning Flow (2021)

Hand Drawn Dracula presents a new album from the Canadian cellist Michael Peter Olsen. His instrumental ambient based mostly on the string sounds has ability to poses a soul and this can be tested on Yearning Flow.

Olsen is absolutely not a debuting artist, he accompanied some huge names in the music industry including Drake, Arcade Fire or Haim. Accompanied by other artists who add synths and basses to the mixture, Olsen produces works that are described as "electric cello in ambient, avant-garde influenced compositions". Those comprise not only of thick and rather heavy synth layers but also other electronic-infused patterns and audio samples both very much of cosmic (especially in MoonMist) or quite apocalyptic flavour (Ours). With the very ethereal finish in Cloud Parade, the summary can be only one, the album is a very much eclectic and multi-layered study of cello sounds in very different environments.

Yearning Flow costs 7 CAD.

Check: Ours

Country: Canada

Genre: cello ambient

Label: Hand Drawn Dracula

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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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