This Lonely Crowd - Bellelouder (2021)

This is one of the most prominent alternative bands on the Brazilian scene. It doesn't mean they are very popular outside of the country, I hadn't heard of them before honestly, but I can safely say that they should be. This year they released their 8th album in the over a decade-long career and entitled it Bellelouder.

What they do is a great rendition of what the 90s. noisy rock was. Very indie rock-like but also extremely noisy and rough in form, the songs here could as well be recorded 20 years ago by The Jesus and Mary Chain or some other, similar artists. The psychedelic spirit of this music means, however, that the compositions here are far from straightforward ones, they can easily be a harsher pop rock hit song but also a psychedelic guitar-fest going well without much vocals and form as well. This, together with the retro vibes, means that you can hardly get bored while listening to the release.

There's also another thing, I know it's probably not true but I can sense (or imagine) some interesting inspirations taken from Neil Gaiman's works. Like the cover art similar to the ones from Sandman comics written by the author or a made-up word "Neverwhere" casually used in a track title. I'm probably reaching (mostly because Gaiman is one of my favourite writers), but it would be super interesting if true.

Bellelouder costs 4 USD.

Check: Avisrara

Country: Brazil

Genre: retro noise rock

Label: Sinewave

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Reveries - To Find Me Again (2021)

After a great debut album, called just Reveries, published in 2018, the Americans went silent, releasing only some singles. Now, the singles are brought together in a form of EP-compilation of some sorts. But it has to be underlined that their music is absolutely spectacular and as such, I couldn't miss  To Find Me Again and not post about it here.

Their music is a great example of noisy dream pop. The energetic guitars and very clear drums are even out by the airy, dispersed vocals. This is an inventive take on indie rock that is meant to be ethereal to the point that it resembles dream pop's dense haze. Especially in tracks that let loose on their ability to create loud sounds, there is some serious shoegaze'y vibes there in songs like Easy to Breathe. The atmosphere on the album is quite thick and makes the audience reflect on their lives as well as want to get up and dance at the same time. No wonder the band describe the release as a "collection of writings that depicts inner conflict, struggles with managing depression and anxiety, and the disenfranchisement of the greed-driven, work-yourself-to-death culture". It's not a fun theme. It is a fun music though and this clash of moods makes the album work.

To Find Me Again costs 4 USD.

Reveries - Reveries (2018) EN

Check: Gone

Country: US

Genre: energetic dream rock

Label: Cardigan Records

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Profond Barathre - Tinnitus (2021)

This is not news that the Swiss can make some quality hard music. The likes of Rorcal or E-L-R proved that in recent years. Profond Barathre is another pebble in this avalanche. And this year's comeback (it seems that they had some works in the past, I'm not very oriented in the metal scene), called Tinnitus, doesn't only make your ears buzz, it's also some Music with a capital M.

This is the kind of music that pretty much optimally balances the metal rabidness and post-genre's atmosphere, the raw and coarse guitars complement the wall of noise's ambiance characteristics. The compositions are not overly complicated but their straightforwardness build up the whole thing's mesmerizing quality. Especially that the tracks here are massive and very long, long enough for the audience to get lost and buried within them, under the massiveness of the sound. It's especially admirable when you realize that the whole album was recorded in a "couple of evening sessions during the winter 2017-2018" and without much post-production, I can hardly believe it, the quality of sound here is so good.

And yes, tinnitus after this album is a real thing.

Tinnitus costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Corpus

Country: Switzerland

Genre: post-black metal

Label: Hummus Records

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Federico Mosconi - Dreamers and Tides (2021)

Another month, another great release from the Russian label DRONARIVM. This time it's the Italian drone/ambient creator Federico Mosconi and his next long play called Dreamers and Tides.

His massive, heavy soundscapes sound exactly like a musical representation of a sea. No wonder that sea is exactly what found it way to the release's cover art and that the artist's music is described in such a way: "his trip is like a tide that comes back a little bit different every time and brings something new to those who could wait for it". Indeed, the album gives the impression of perplexing dream in which every aspect is different and eerie but at the same time very much connected to the rest and to the whole. This is only underlined by the rare moments you can hear the actual guitar sounds and live instruments. The sea stays powerful even if the surface seems to be in peace and this album sounds exactly like this.

Dreamers and Tides costs 5 EUR.

Check: Dreamers and Tides

Country: Italy

Genre: massive soundscape

Label: DRONARIVM

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Last Ice - Last Ice (2021)

Last Ice is a combination of two shoegazey bands: Bloody Knives and We Are Parasols. While I don't know much about the latter, the Texans of the former have been one of those fresh and very good takes on nugaze. Together with their Oregon and Georgia-based counterparts, they master this even more to such an extent that their debut album Last Ice seems to easily be one of the best shoegaze releases of the year.

This is clearly not just indie rock with noisy add-ons, it's shoegaze in its best, one that combines Slowdive's delicateness with MBV's mystery, one that sounds like homogeneous sea of powerful sound but at the same time pampers the audience with the quality of lulling sounds. The combination of two bands, among other things, results in having two vocals: very dream pop-like, subtle male one and the second, female, folk-like airy, sounding as if Enya decided to leave her castles and start a shoegaze band. And the latter provide what can be described as the uniqueness factor for this project. They don't sound like anything I know.

They do, however, tend to get lost within the overpowered guitar and synths-based backgrounds. On the other hand, the longer the album goes, the more electronic and trippy the music gets. So Curse is barely shoegaze anymore, more of ethereality-rich electronica of the best kind while Disease is perfectly trip-hoppy trip-hop. Until in the end it finishes with a gothic and industrial wierdo called, obviously, End.

Last Ice costs 8 USD.

Check: Chains

Country: Texas/Oregon/Georgia, US

Genre: ethereal nugaze

Label: No Movement Records

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Grive - Grive (2021)

Paul Régimbeau has just appeared on the blog with his band FOUDRE! who released a brilliant, industrial, ambient-infused album Future Sabbath. And he's back already due to him being the half of the new duo called Grive who just showed their first EP.

The other half is the French singer-songwriter Agnès Gayraud, also known as La Féline, and it's her who plays the major role at the beginning of the album. The electronically-biased backgrounds are subtle here and exist to underline Gayraud's catchy and at the same time airy voice. Still, the music here has clear dark vibes: when it's pop, it's dark pop, when the electronics take over, it's dark trip-hop with industrial hints all over the place. And this happens fast, Kingdom  consists entirely of a one-liner chorus drowned in murky waters of electronica and guitar sounds while Burger Shack, still very much an electronic track, gives more space for Gayraud again. Still, my favourite one here is the finisher in Coal Mine - a track that combines all of the above with heavy post-rock vibes in the final part. Great debut!

Grive costs 4 EUR.

FOUDRE! - Future Sabbath (2021)

Check: Coal Mine

Country: France

Genre: dark electronic pop

Label: Schubert Music Publishing

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The Underground Youth - The Falling (2021)

Originally from UK but residing in Berlin, The Underground Youth is no stranger to anyone interested, even slightly, in darker post-punk music. Having said that, they are also masters of making it very approachable to anyone, who wants to taste the gothic darkness regardless of the music genre. They did it again, perhaps in the best way yet, on their, if I'm not mistaken, 10th album called The Falling.

I've always associated the band with more post-punk vibes but the reality is that their music, especially now, is more of gothic country/americana nature. The dark, gloomy and funeral-like vocals by Craig Dyer are the leading force of this music, providing the unreal but also intimate at the same time vibes all the way through. They are accompanied mostly by acoustic guitar and violins and this completes the uncanny country/americana of the darkest type kind of feel. For me it always resembles bands like The Black Heart Procession and their broken world.

The best track here is the one that has been with me for months now - A Sorrowful Race is a beautiful compromise between moody ballad and nervously gloomy, gothic anthem. But it was a close call as the band can easily turn the gears up and create faster and very catchy songs, primarily For You Are the One, one that's still extremely moody but can also make your feet dance instantly. One of the best releases of the year so far imho.

The Falling costs 7 GBP.

The Underground Youth - What Kind Of Dystopian Hellhole Is This? (2017) EN

Check: A Sorrowful Race

Country: UK/Germany

Genre: gothic country

Label: Fuzz Club

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Lorem Ipsum - Vivre encore (2021)

The French band Lorem Ipsum is probably one of the most intriguing things I've listened to this year. Their music can only be described as neoclassical post-hardcore and this says it all. The combination of classical instruments and desperate vocals is stunning and can be admired on the band's second album Vivre encore.

Perhaps neoclassicism is not the best term here as the compositions on the album are usually kept in a very post-hardcore-like, fast-paced and chaotic way. The violins (that are sooo exciting with those vibes) as well as piano keys resemble more some crazy folk energetic tunes but suited up in a nice, baroque form. The complexity and the untamed energy of this music fill the soul of the listeners with powerful joy. And there's still the coolest part - the screamo vocals. Those are, as the genre dictates, screaming, desperate and violent. The contrast here is what builds the uncanny awe that stayed with me for the whole time the album was on.

You can hardly not appreciate the neoclassicism here either. Some introductions are composed as delicate, beautiful pieces for piano and violins only to get violently torn into pieces after a few seconds. And to make the whole thing even more peculiar, the album is meant as a "concept album about body failures" which fittingly corresponds with the cover art but unfortunately cannot be admired without the knowledge of French. Still - unique and interesting, just like the whole release.

Vivre encore costs 7 EUR.

Check: Véro

Country: France

Genre: neoclassical post-hardcore

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Secret Gardens - Tundra (2021)

Secret Gardens is one of those solo-projects that absolutely don't feel like they are made of only one person. The ranges of great, guitar post-rock music composed by the American artist, Greg Almeida, are meant to be admired on his debut album Tundra.

The project was designed as an "instrumental therapy for [the artist] though the lens of all the breathtaking things [he has] seen in nature". The first part is visible in I'm Fucking Tired of Being Sad's title and it can be one of the truest sentences in my life too. But there are also references to the nature with Kosciuszko (I believe it's more likely to refer to the mountain than to the Polish historical figure) and Whittier, AK (just google and look at the pictures of this Alaskan town!) but most importantly in the music itself - in most parts monumental, powerful and impressive in the same way high mountains are.

There are exceptions like Stilness, a bit toned down track with vocals by Erin Reus, the vocalist of the Australian band Stateside. And finished in a cool way too. Another one is the aforementioned Whittier, AK that, very fittingly, sounds like a blizzard heard from a sanctuary of a house. Very moody. The album works on audience as well as it seems to have worked on the artist and this is probably the ultimate recommendation.

Tundra costs 10 USD.

Check: Walk Away

Country: New York, US

Genre: monumental post-rock

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Baulta - Another Second Chance (2021)

The Finnish band Baulta make their heavily guitar-based music for 10 years now, the debut album, Deeply Sorry to Interrupt Your Megalomania was released back in 2011. To mark this important anniversary, they created an album with rather deceitful (for a band of that impressive history) title Another Second Chance.

I don't have to give the Finns another second chance, I like their music already, with Any Fool Can Regret Yesterday being considered one of the best of 2014. Having said that, the new one may be the best one yet. It's all due to the perfectly executed way of putting the focus on the dark and heavy atmosphere here. There's little riff-racing among the guitarists, rather the music makes a melancholic, tear-jerking space for emotions. It is achieved also by introducing some very light, piano-like notes that contrast with the background, uniform darkness like stars do on a night sky, especially impressively in the album's opener in Third.

Another emotional moments come with the noisy collapse of My Golden Cage, the very post-rock-like summit of the wall of noise brings satisfaction and a lot of feelings that are difficult to describe. The overall message here is positive though, although the albums is meant to be "a journey from the beauty of a birth to the struggle of self-awareness" (not so subtly hinted in Hardly Even Here's finish), its description ends with an uplifting "Even the longest night will end and the sun will rise".

Another Second Chance costs 7 EUR.

Check: My Golden Cage

Country: Finland

Genre: dark post-rock

Label: dunk!records

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FRITZ - Pastel (2021)

Hailing from Australia (not Austria, which in the context of the project's name may be confusing), Fraser Marshall creates some hazy and danceable tunes. She makes the best of bedroom pop atmosphere and shoegazey noise, combining both into something more. Just like on her second album (or the first studio album) called Pastel.

The two main factors here are the melodies and the noisy atmosphere. You can't really choose what's more important. The songs are extremely melodic and light-weight, making the audience want to dance and fill their hearts with some Australian sun. On the other hand, everything is kept within the hazy realm of shoegaze's derivatives. The whole thing reminds me very much of Tiny Fireflies with more of the dream-pop-like vocals. The songs are short and very fast, this is the most surprising part as the moody gazey vibes don't make this music melancholic or dark. Just pure and carefree fun, it's clear that the artist wanted to talk about "[her] upbringing, [her] adolescence, [her] friends, family and [her] whole goddamn life" without any unnecessary complications and this is so cool and pure.

Pastel costs 10 AUD.

Check: Gracie, Forgive Me

Country: Australia

Genre: noisy indie pop

Label: Inertia Music

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Watchcamp January-February'21 with Infinite Third, Leon Ampersand, Pale Blue Eyes, That's Your Angel, TREASVRE

Infinite Third - Dissolve/Disperse

Florida's Billy Mays III with his newest tracks. The artist presents his way of blending very much guitar-oriented and quite progressive post-rock with electronic soundscapes and even ambient-like passages. The single tracks here are more towards the louder sounds, yest still mesmerizing. The two songs cost 3.33 USD.

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Leon Ampersand - Milquetoast Bleeder

A Jeremy Mendicino and Will Peters duo from Vermont makes some moody and cosy dream pop that reminds me of Fireflies so much but gets more pop-like energetic and melodic pretty fast and finishes with some pretty noisy tunes. The two songs cost 1 USD.

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That's Your Angel - Jokerman

Singer-songwriter from Pennsylvania, making some blues-slowcore, extremely atmospheric stuff with clear Nick Cave vibes in this cover of Bob Dylan's song. The debut EP is bound for August, worth waiting for. The single costs 1 USD.

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Pale Blue Eyes - Motionless / Chelsea

They call their music cream-pop and it makes so much sense. The English band present their debuting material and it's already so good, catchy melodies in hazy environment with subtle electronic kicks in Motionless and extremely moody reverbs in Chelsea. Two tracks cost 2 GBP.

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TREASVRE - Heavy Arms / Secrets

Indie rock with heavily atmospheric and noisy vibes. The way the California-based bands executes their catchy compositions is pretty impressive. The two songs cost whatever you want to pay.

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FOUDRE! - Future Sabbath (2021)

The French ambient supergroup consisting of the members of several other bands, FOUDRE! come back with their fifth album called Future Sabbath in the attempt to combine the spiritual and occult with the modern and progressive.

The "improvised music [functioning] as a haunting ritual at the confines of the Martian territories of noise, drone and ambient" here is both mesmerizing and unsettling with its industrial drones and spiritual tunes with traces of jazzy vibes and pure noise. It is meant to be a study of "invisible forces that live within us, through a ceremony that brings together occult sciences, forgotten landscapes and the fever of the unconscious" and successes in doing so by inducing a trance-like experience within the audience, making them dance and sob at the same, weird time. The artistic message is further amplified by Faye Formisano, a universal artist who designed the cover art, as unsettling and eerie as the whole thing.

Future Sabbath costs 7 EUR.

Check: Liberation of the Mystics II

Country: France

Genre: industrial improvised soundscape

Label: NAHAL Recordings

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Sarin - You Can't Go Back (2021)

Sarin, the Canadian post-metal band has a portfolio of heavy music counting three LPs now, thanks to the release of You Can't Go Back, an album pretty special for their discography. But more importantly an impressive dose of loud and massive music.

As the description or perhaps a legend already states, the band locked themselves in a studio for a week back in December in order to "create and capture something more energetic than their austere back catalogue". I don't know their previous releases but I trust this words as the pace of the album is particularly impressive. Try to keep up with When You Melt, it's almost impossible with the guitars and drums galloping on their way to the surprisingly moody ambient bridge and the unsurprisingly energetic finale. The post-metal elements here are mostly about the quality of the guitars but there's also the vocals, aggressive and ominously lurking from a distance, as if hidden under the massiveness of the music.

The band also underwent line-up changes and this is reflected in the emotional layer of the album, described as "an urgent and emotionally charged missive designed to document and celebrate a period of pressing uncertainty". This is probably best felt in the pinnacle of the album, Thick Mire with its absurdly fast and industrially-infused composition that just swipes you off the surface of the world.

You Can't Go Back costs 10 USD.

Check: Thick Mire

Country: Canada

Genre: energetic post-metal

Label: Prosthetic Records

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April Rain - Mirror of Ether (2021)

The Petersburg-based post-rockers of April Rain appeared on this blog already, but it was very long time ago, back in 2016, and with a very different album from what they usually do, a piano-based A Melting Snowman EP for a guitar post-rock collective. So it's a high time to show what they can do now with a great example in form of their new album called Mirror of Ether.

The group is devoted to the instrumental and traditional sound of post-rock, early God Is an Astronaut and other legends would appreciate it. The compositions here are exclusively guitar-oriented and loud but not particularly massive or dark. There's a lot of the lively guitar play here with the energy and fun exposed in the foreground. This is a kind of music that would be a blast experienced live. That being said, there are also darker and moodier moments, especially the impressive and massive Towards the Native Uvalas or Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. Not to mention the impressive finale in Pathway that starts slow but at the end is pure and loud magic. It's no secret I prefer those heavier tracks, but it only means that most of the post-rock fans should be able to get something they like here.

Mirror of Ether costs 7 USD.

April Rain - a melting snowman EP (2016)

Check: Sleeping Beauty Syndrome

Country: Russia

Genre: guitar post-rock

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Divide and Dissolve - Gas Lit (2021)

The Australian duo consisting of Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill is known for their punk-like approach to music and loud and heavy sound. They just released their third album, Gas Lit, and it's both artistically satisfying and otherwise important. One could say "it's lit".

The artists are taking up fight for many noble cases, mostly revolving around the environment and the prosperity of the Indigenous people all over the world. They name their album many things, including "a call to transformation and freedom", a statement I find especially powerful. Also, it all feels very natural and true, which is certainly helped by the fact that both musicians are of the minority origins (Reed is Black & Tsalagi [Cherokee] while Nehill is Māori) which makes it easier for them to "carry their fight and ancestors fight forward each and every day, using the power of their performances to draw attention to the ongoing battle against systemic oppression".

They do what they do with the help of very loud and very powerful drone metal. The texture of their sound is as droney as it could be, it's coarse and irritating and very heavy. It is made of guitar and saxophone sounds that are so transmuted, they can be hardly recognized anymore. The atmosphere itself conveys the message in an impressive way, but if it was too little, there's also the monologue spoken by Minori Sanchiz-Fung, a Venezuelan artist of multiple interests, in Did You Have Something To Do With It and it makes the spines thrill.

Gas Lit costs 10.98 USD.

Check: We Are Really Worried About You

Country: Australia

Genre: drone metal

Label: Invada Records

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In/Animate - Portals (2021)

The Wisconsin-based In/Animate is a solo project that started in 2018. After several singles, it's resulting now in a long-play debut with a moody and modern cover art signalling the moody and modern content of Portals.

The sound here is defined as "synthesizers and a mix of acoustic and electronic percussion to create music with influences of post-rock and IDM" which basically means the marriage of the electronic and the post-rock into one, extremely attractive and homogeneous entity. You can hardly say it's one of them with traces of the other, it's both at the same time. The post-rock-originating compositions are very complex and overwhelmingly monumental, just like the best works of the genre.

On the other hand, it is accompanied by heavy electronica that is very much responsible for the melodies and "riffs" but also often breaks the composition, a trace of what dub steps does on much larger scale. Also the overall theme of the album is set in the sci-fi and space exploration tones. This whole thing results in outbursts of dark energy that can power up your lives with ease, as well as in "fresh sounds to transport you to different dimensions" as the musician states when talking about his artistic goals.

Portals costs 7 USD.

Check: Through the Fold

Country: Wisconsin, US

Genre: IDM post-rock

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N & ninemiles - 44​.​04 (2020)

Two German artists, Hellmut Neidhardt (N) and Thomas Kempka (ninemiles) (the latter known as a member of [BOLT]) have cooperated and toured together for some time now but it's only now they released their own material via dunk!records. And by "now" I mean the end of the last year, but 44.04 is too good to skip it in favour of newer albums.

The soundscapes of the first track on this album are of the more lively type. There's a lot going on, but, at the same time, their sound is homogenous and well thought-through; there's no chaos in this music but there's a lot of mood. The darker, rougher noise usually finds its place in the backgrounds while organ-like synths and other effects occupy the first rows of the compositions. Of course, this is the thing that mostly catches attention here, those simple but also in a weird way complex compositions have some particularly mesmerizing features, swallowing the audience whole. The second track is more about noisy drones that can easily lull you to sleep.

44​.​04 costs 7 EUR.

Check: II

Country: Germany

Genre: synth-rich soundscape

Label: dunk!records

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Fawning - Illusions of Control (2021)

I'm kind of surprised that the long play debut album from the American Fawning isn't hyped that much as it deserves. I remember discovering their EP Too Late and how big it sounded to me back in 2019. Now we can finally listen to more of their fascinating take on shoegaze on Illusions of Control.

The duo Cheyenne Avant (known from Night School) and Devin Nunes (Whirr) make music that strikes with the ethereal atmosphere from the very first seconds of the intro in At Fault. Traditionally for dream pop projects, it is achieved by the exceptionally subtle and airy vocals, it's the kind that conveys mostly atmosphere and emotions and less so the melodies. And this is the best kind. It is accompanied by slow-paced music with the main roles reserved for synthesizer sounds blending into electronic haze that fills the space all over the place.

The songs here have a very melancholic flavour, especially for this kind of electronic dream pop genre. Although the synths can be pretty lively, the overall sadness of the release simply brings it down and drowns with melancholy (especially when joined by these weirdly nostalgic saxophone sounds in Nothing Matters). It is further underlined by beautiful ambient-like passages between the songs and in the final track, and even if there are livelier tracks here (like You're Not One to Cry most notably), I would say it's one of the saddest albums I heard this year.

Illusions of Control costs 7 USD.

Fawning - Too Late (2019) EN

Check: Linger

Country: California, US

Genre: synthwave dream pop

Label: Graveface Records & Curiosities

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Piana - Raula (2021)

I'm not gonna lie, Naoko Sasaki a.k.a. Piana's albums were very important to me when I was younger, and her Ephemeral basically made me fall into dream pop while Muse is one of the best albums I know in general. She was silent for 7 years but now the Japanese artist is back with a long and beautifully airy album Raula.

Very fittingly, the album's title basically means humming in Icelandic, the language and culture that seems to have some influence over the artist's last work. The album "moves through a quiet space, then to a prologue, brimming with hope, which opens up a fantasy adventure story feel" which is helped by the fact that Piana's humming-like airy vocals are in fact singing lyrics written in imaginary language that makes it possible for the listeners to "imagine an abstract, beautiful fantasy world, no matter what country they are from". Sounds like something very well-known and also very Icelandic.

The music around the vocals is extremely airy as well with the omnipresent neoclassical elements (most importantly violins by Atowa Yuri) and beautiful piano keys by Hiromi Kurosaki all over the place. But at the same time, it's not as innocent as I remember it to be, with quite invasive sounds of drums (as in Filica) and the general massively monumental vibes that came from the fascination for medieval and spiritual music. Most of the album though consists of short piano-based beautiful ballads. Also, North totally sounds like a Christmas carol, even feels weird to listen to it now.

Raula costs 10 USD.

Check: Rafe

Country: Japan

Genre: neoclassical dream pop

Label: guns N' girls

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Blue Minute - Live or Hope (2020)

Blue Minute is an artist with very specific interests: "Tapes. Vinyl. Found Sound. Samples. Synths. Guitars. Drums. Bass. Thrift. Theft. Beaches. Clipd Beaks Gang". But he doesn't make hip-hop music as one could guess, quite far from it actually. His new EP is filled with very dreamy but also very electronic music.

It is opened with Live or Hope  which is a perfect example of slowcore ambient pop the dreamy atmosphere of which takes a lot from dark, foggy landscapes at dawn. Exceptionally moody track. And then, the album changes: now it's slowcore ambient pop as seen from the sunny, Californian perspective with No More Years built upon clear and invasive electronic backgrounds that eventually transform into some guitar noise too. It's not a slow slowcore, but the atmosphere is similar thanks to the extremely subtle vocals sounding as if heard from very far away. The industrial soundscapes that finish the album fit both of the worlds perfectly, even if there's as much of nervousness as there's peace in this music, especially in my favourite track here, To the Sky.

Also, I love the cover arts Blue Minute adds to his music and this EP is no exception here.

Live or Hope costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: To the Sky

Country: California, US

Genre: electronic slowcore

Label: Blue Industry

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TheseEyesRadiate - Crashing Waves (2021)

These Eyes Radiate "are not a band, [they] don't play live and [they]'re not coming to a town near you". This is, however, a solo project by Theo Yiannaki from London, a musician involved in such bands as Betazoids, Starhead or Feed the Wolf. And even if he's not going to play in a town near you, you can always check his first EP since 2012 under this moniker, called Crashing Waves.

It consists of three songs that are all about indie rock with big focus on noisy, very guitar-oriented backgrounds. It does feel a bit lo-fi in some places but the clue is there: it's supposed to be melodic and noisy at the same time. It's achieved with choruses based on short phrases that make their way to the audience minds immediately, as well as with double vocals in the ballad-like-turned-space-rock Into the Deep Blue Sea and some very powerful guitars in Stuck In The Back Of Your Mind. It's not really shoegaze or noise pop but it's close and I dig this sound.

Crashing Waves costs 3 GBP.

Check: Into the Deep Blue Sea

Country: UK

Genre: noisy indie rock

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