Fawns of Love - Innocence of Protection (2021)

Jenny and Joseph Andreotti make up the Fawns of Love duo and have been making music together for four years and three albums now. The third one, Innocence of Protection, was released this autumn and shows the couple's ability to create fun and catchy dreamy tunes.

The California-based artists' music is based on Jenny's airy and high-pitched vocals accompanied by the mellow, not-too-noisy guitar compositions. This sounds like a more ethereal take on twee pop, easy-listening dream pop that is pure fun and relaxation. Tracks like Waiting for Dali's Car and Taboo Daydreaming make a very good examples of catchy songs that, at the same time, make you chill out to their tunes. This is served in a minimal, wave-like way, with soft guitars and shallow basses all around. But the real treat is actually Andreotti's vocals themselves - the way they are dispersed, make them sound so angelic that it's actually pretty cool that there's no many things that obstruct them. And they are able to create the properly dreamy atmosphere almost on their own (like it is in Memory Triggers). It's a good example of a very solid airy release.

Innocence of Protection costs 8 USD.

Check:  Waiting for Dali's Car 

Country: California, US

Genre: mellow dream pop

Label: Kingfisher Bluez

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Resina - Speechless (2021)

Karolina Rec is a part of the offstream music scene in Poland for some time now, to the point that she appears also in more mainstream surroundings. The school-educated cellist is well-known for her experiments with neoclassical music and those are very well visible on her new album called Speechless.

In her career, Rec collaborated with and supported so many top-shelf artists, both Polish and international, that it is pointless to list them here. She has left her mark on the experimental music scene here already and she seems ready to make it even more visible. Speechless has very little left from the artist's neoclassical background with a lot of attention put on the industrial and noisy atmosphere with some exceptionally ethereal elements, most notably the heavy use of choir singing. This makes the album both dark and unnerving as well as airy and beautiful. Those worlds collide in Resina's music very often, for example when the war-like drums take over the soothing choir singing in Failed Myth Simulation or when in Manic the cello sounds coexist with very brutal noise.

Although, as the album's title suggests, the release is solely instrumental, its main theme is to "explore ideas about language, the voice and the unpredictability of nature" (like in Darwin's finches, the birds that are a perfect example of said unpredictability). This album that shows music from very different parts of the calm/noisy spectrum, seems to be a good commentary on the nature and language's complicated, not to say experimental, ways.

Speechless costs 11 EUR (9 GBP).

Check: Failed Myth Simulation  

Country: Poland

Genre: choral industrial electronica

Label: 130701

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WatchCamp November-December '21 with Ai fen, Pierre Andersson Ek, Avalon Skies, Hiroe, Sweet Sore

Ai fen - Can You Believe?

The Polish-Chinese Czech Republic-based artist is already fairly known in the offstream environment here. This time, she comes back with a new single that showcases her airy but also very much experimental electronic pop with outstanding vocals. The single costs 1 EUR (20 CZK).

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Pierre Andersson Ek - Vår värld

The "artist and neighborhood rascal" from the southern part of Sweden creates nugaze music that can be carefully compared to the icons such as Nothing or The Pains of Being Pure at Heart; his music consists of loud and noisy guitars (with such a good quality to them!) and melodic, soft vocals; I love it. Two tracks cost 6 EUR (56 SEK).

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Avalon Skies - Wanderer's Dream

Antti Pihlajaniemi creates "electronic yet organic, earthly yet otherworldly music" which translates to a blend of electronica and minimal dark folk with very dark and airy atmosphere, sounding very Finnish-like really. The original version includes a metal-like voice in spoken word parts, but, to be honest, I prefer the second, instrumental version. The two versions cost 2 EUR.

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Hiroe - demos

The Philadelphia-based fresh post-rock band released their demos, and while I'm usually very hesitant towards demo material, this time it absolutely rocks. Two tracks present so much good quality guitar-based instrumental music that I can't wait to hear some more from the Americans. The album costs 7 USD.

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Sweet Sore - Resonance

The South African artist Justin Mitchell has been releasing singles and short albums for several years now. His new single presents a moody bedroom dream pop with barely audible vocals and a lot of background drones. The single with a short intro costs whatever you want to pay.

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Isolation Drills - Year One (2021)

Isolation Drills is a fairly new post-rock project by two Indianapolis artists Dino Maglinte and Tony Reitz. Their music is a very guitar-oriented and somewhat heavy take on post-rock and their debut EP, called Year One, gives a taste of the duo's song-writing abilities.

The compositions they present are pretty long and this means that they can slowly but surely develop into noisy, guitar-filled tunes. However, in the first part of the album, there's no real crescendos here, the songs feel heavy and loud, but light on bombastic, wall-of-noise solutions. And they feature vocals too, which is particularly surprising after the long and engaging instrumental intro in The Otakus. The vocals make the whole thing closer to guitar psychedelic rock, stoner-like heavy but also very much melodic. And, as the project's name may suggest, the artists are focused on the uneasiness of the present times and the need to start again with Glacial's lyrics beginning with "Reaching out from the North, leveling it all (...)/ Start it over".

The second part of the EP features some more of the post-rock characteristic, very loud and satisfying finishes. There's grandeur and there's noise, a very uplifting and awe-inspiring kind of music.

Year One costs 4 USD.

Check: Glacial

Country: Indiana, US 

Genre: guitar post-rock

Label: The Mutual Appreciation Society

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NOX - In a Heartbeat (2021)

The French neoclassical artist Lucas Noire makes music as NOX. And under this moniker, he released a short album called In a Heartbeat. And it's full of beautiful piano sounds with some modern, ambient elements.

The 5 tracks on the album make together word "hopes" and it is a good summary of this music. Piano pieces that more often than not sound bright and hopeful, with melodies that don't shy away from higher pace and catchy tunes, but also with sequences of softer, more melancholic music (this combination is particularly effective in E). Especially when there are, very rarely but still, some special effects, like the heart beat that leads the composition in S. This is a short but emotional EP made almost entirely of piano sounds and proves that you don't need much more to convey so much.

In a Heartbeat costs 3.33 EUR.

Check: E

Country: France

Genre: piano-led neoclassical

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Elusive Arizona - The Best of​.​.​. Crescendocore! (2021)

Elusive Arizona is a solo post-rock act, obviously, not from Arizona. The Pennsylvania-based musician created this short EP with two longer tracks filled with everything the post-rock genre has to offer and entitled this work, very fittingly, The Best of​.​.​. Crescendocore! 

The artist doesn't hide his intentions, quite straightforwardly introducing the short album by saying "let me introduce to you a two-piece representation of the whole genre". And indeed, anything you'd expect from a good post-rock can be found here. Perhaps there's a dose of irony in his work ("crescendocore" as a term sure sounds very ironic but also on point), but it doesn't change the fact that for a post-rock lover, the songs here are enjoyable to say the least. There is an intriguing introduction with some atmosphere-generating spoken word pieces, there's a real blizzard of guitar sounds gradually devouring it, there are bright keys illuminating the more peaceful moments in And Again and, finally, a crescendo that does justice to the album's title, one that feels to be endless and consuming everything that stands against it. Even if this is a joke, I love it.

The Best of​.​.​. Crescendocore! costs 2 USD.

Check: And Again

Country: Pennsylvania, US

Genre: guitar post-rock

Label: Definite Future

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shedfromthebody - To Hold the Ripened Sun (2021)

Last year, Suvi Savikko and her music project completely swept me of my feet with her blackgaze ethereal masterpiece A Dead and Aimless Hum. I named her the best post-metal act of the year and I couldn't be more happy from the fact that only 12 months later, she's back with another record called To Hold the Ripened Sun.

The Finnish artist's "music paints a distorted, ethereal landscape, through which she carries her songs with hauntingly beautiful vocals and lone, wailing guitars". The second album sounds really like a followup to the debut with very similar atmosphere reached by the doom metal musician. She effortlessly combines the metal-like darkness and grandeur with the ethereal, oneiric vocals and slow pace of the more dreamy genres. As a result, her music is both goth and airy, doom-like and soothing. 

There are some tasty surprises, most notably In the Pines and its folk-like beginning that goes on as an Americana ballad with crunchy guitars and way clearer vocals. Or, my favourite part, the mesmerizing, very modern-sounding repetitive finish of Halfsorrow. I particularly like the quality of guitar sounds that, although very heavy, doom-like style, give a lot of room for the vocals to enchant their own, dreamy spells on the audience.

To Hold the Ripened Sun costs 10 EUR.

shedfromthebody - A Dead and Aimless Hum (2020)

Check: Halfsorrow

Country: Finland

Genre: ethereal blackgaze

Label: Black Terror Records

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Cecilia::eyes - Sore Memories Always End (2021)

For Cecilia::eyes, Sore Memories Always End is their fourth album already. But somehow I have never really gotten to know them, perhaps because the last album was released in 2014. Now, seven (!) years passed and their new dose of ridiculously ethereal post-rock came to make this winter more mysterious and beautiful.

I can't help but compare the Belgians' music to what we know and love Immanu El for. It's the same vibe of slower but carefully developing, epic but intimate, and massive but cozy post-rock. It gives the feeling of not hurrying anywhere, much rather slowly progressing from one audio wonder to another. The guitars build up slow but steady, making the walls of noise overwhelming and crushingly beautiful, but it never feels like it's meant to crush the audience - quite the opposite, the melancholic sounds have rather an uplifting influence on you. Especially when the vocals hit - again, coming back to Immanu El, their pitch is completely different but they convey the same exceptionally ethereal and very sad expression.

The whole atmospheric melancholia type of mood is present from the very beginning of the album to its very end. But it's best tangible in the longest tracks that have even more time to get into the mesmerizing instrumental parts (the whole album is already a longer one, it takes some time to feel it to the end) like the ones in In a Blue Cold Cloth and, as one could expect, in the album's slow-crescendo finish in Frozen Sand. I can't wait to experience all this live during the next year's Dunk!Festival. 

Sore Memories Always End costs 8 EUR.

Check: Twin Mountains

Country: Belgium

Genre: ethereal post-rock

Label: dunk!records

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Væv - Drømmenes spejl (2021)

The Danish artist Væv debuts with their first ever release called Drømmenes Spejl. It's a striking soundscape filled with dark and fear, but also with the cure for your struggles with reality.

As the project's name translates to "web", the musical goal of the artist is to "explore the interconnectedness in our lives, perhaps chief among them the connection between our day to day reality and our spiritual development". It came from personal and health problems of the musician that ultimately translated into inspiration for music. Granted, rather bleak and gloomy music, but that's it charm really. The dark ambient here reflects our reality in the oneiric and slowly psychedelic way, just like dreams do - this is where the album's title, translated to "The Mirror of Dreams", comes from. The album is filled with mesmerizing and pitch-black drones and dark soundscapes that appear to be populated by some things you may not have the courage to meet.

Also important is how striking the cover art is; together with the music, it has potential to haunt you for the rest of your lives.

Drømmenes spejl costs 7 EUR.

Check: Troværdige svigt 

Country: Denmark

Genre: dark ambient

Label: Winter-Light

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Pertegò - Una (2021)

Pertegò and their emotional music appeared on my blog three years ago with their previous album Black. In the meantime, the Emilia-Romagna-based group celebrated the 10 years anniversary of their debut album and now, to underline this achievement, they showed their fourth album mischievously called Una.

The focus point for their art is nature and its forces, they are "telling stories about still free nature, they are talking about their world made of simple things and the nature that gave them birth" and fittingly, the music on the new album ranges from delicate and airy places to sky-reaching, breath-taking monuments made of sound. Just like the world around us was meant to be. The artists do that with an epic take on melancholic post-rock/prog-rock music with extremely heavy focus on creating the airy and ethereal atmosphere. The inclusion of piano keys gives it the delicate notes, the string sequences add to the whole thing's tear-jerking nostalgia, the oneiric-sounding vocals bring the element of Sacrum and simultaneously makes me think of the soundtrack for Civilization V, my favourite gaming soundtrack ever - with similar orchestral/choral take on the ethereal music. I love it so much as it goes on and delivers more and more nostalgic cinematic vibes and, simply speaking, beauty.

For the band, the album is "the end of the fifteen-year journey, a journey that has described [them] in every moment of [their] life until today" and, at the same time, marks the time of personal changes within the band's line-up. As a result, the album sounds fittingly epic (it's not always that an album means so much for a group of people) and magical.

Una costs 8 EUR.

Pertegò - Black (2018)

Check: Una

Country: Italy

Genre: orchestral ethereal post-rock

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Hooray for Humans - Tell Your Family and Friends that You Love Them (2021)

It's been already three years since I posted about Hooray for Humans' debut EP. Now, the Spanish collective is back with brand new dose of noisy energy. The October's Tell Your Family and Friends that You Love Them combines the twee pop innocence with some serious guitar noise.

This energy and general positive feeling that comes from their music shouldn't come as surprise judging by the project's name and the debut album's title. However, it's not something that is clearly expressed in music itself: the noisy tracks are mostly kept in slower pace with murmuring vocals on top of that. It sounds very much like RIDE or The Jesus and Mary Chain meet the gloomier R.E.M.'s pieces. Generally: very moody and very cozy. I love how the calmer mood coexists here with very clear and apparent noise of the guitars: for example, Tenth Floor seems to be particularly good at this exciting combination.

Especially that the further the album goes, the slower and moodier it gets. The album's title's thought may not be so positive and careless after all: there's a lot about difficult parts of life on this record, including saying goodbye to other people and the way the last year or two impacted all of us. But perhaps it's still the most important thing: to keep your friends close.

Tell Your Family and Friends that You Love Them costs whatever you want to pay.

Hooray for Humans - Hooray for Humans (2018)

Check: Tenth Floor

Country: Spain

Genre: slowcore noise pop

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Sunset Images - Traumatismo Nacional (2021)

Sunset Images is a project led by Samuel Osorio from Mexico City. Its core lays in the ability and willingness to experiment with noisy guitar sounds and more or less dreamy atmosphere. Already the project's Obscure Daze was close to be featured on this blog back in 2017 and with the release of the third album in the project's discography, Traumatismo Nacional I couldn't miss the opportunity to drop some lines on the artists' noisy souls.

As the title suggests, the album is said to be "a sharp and deep wound represented in sound, a scar that we have carried inside for a long time and each time it hurts even more", a commentary on the state of the society with all of its misogynist, racist and chauvinistic tropes. Osorio meant it as a comment on his own country, but, in fact, you can apply it to the modern society anywhere. And this rage, the heaviness of the critique is clearly notable from the very first moments of the album: it is filled with angry and fierce music with punk-like drums and a lot of noise in every second (like in the euphorically mad Prohibición) but also toned down by the oneiric atmosphere. 

This anger is also clear in the vocals, often without much meaning except for the desperate, screaming frustration. This raging atmosphere, filtered by some dreamy and dispersed lenses, goes on and on, finding its pinnacle moments in the absolute noise of メルド / Merudo. Afterwards, the tracks get calmer for a while, but even then, they are not a tiny a bit less noisy. And finally, the album finishes with two long track psychedelic to their core. This is the essence of noisy rock with a great touch of dreamy psychedelia.

Traumatismo Nacional costs 4 EUR (90 MXN).

Check: Prohibición

Country: Mexico

Genre: angry noise rock

Label: Little Cloud Records/ Dirty Filthy Records 

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La Houle - La chute (2021)

La Houle are from France and create some extremely interesting take on noisy pop/rock, one that feels fresh but also strongly rooted in the music genres it comes from. If we agree that Première Vague was not only a compilation of the band's first two EPs but their debut album, the French come back with their second album called La chute.

The title translates to "The Fall" (which I should have guessed from the word "parachute") but unlike The Fall the band, is far from post-punk's definition of falling. Instead, there's more from Slowdive's ecstasy from the feeling of falling - at least in the guitar-heavy but smooth and exciting music. It seems to be starting in the indie rock's area and going very far in the shoegazey, dreamy direction. The vocals sound very nugazey in this Nothing-like style which suggests being subtle and airy but also very well conducting the melodies. Not to mention that the French language itself adds to the mysterious and fresh feeling I sensed in this album.

However, there's more to that. In La Houle's music, it's very tangible that the artists didn't want to go full on music cliches, instead, they skillfully combine shoegaze guitars with tons of electronic sounds (so well-balanced in Toi (ce moi) that starts like a ballad based on lively synthy sounds and develops into a wall-of-sound guitar experience) and interesting stylistic choices like the spoken work, noir-sounding parts in La chute the track. Super interesting release.

La chute costs 7 EUR.

Check: Toi (ce moi)

Country: France

Genre: electronic dream rock

Label: Music From The Masses / October Tone

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ANDER - .​.​. Potrwa Wiecznie (2021)

Ander (or ArosAnder in some places) is an ambient producer based in the northern Poland. He released a handful of albums already, although the label states that this is his second one after a well-received Smu†ek ("Sadness") from 2016. In any case, the new, massive album ...Potrwa wiecznie ("...It Will Last Forever") strikes with the dark atmosphere and the ability to create engaging ambient compositions.

The albums is said to consist of "short, slightly song-like forms with a slightly melancholic and oneiric overtone". It is opened with very airy choir in Błogosławienstwo ("Blessing") and follows with dark ambient with, indeed, some dreamy parts. But in fact, almost every track here has a different flavour to it, like the cosmic disco vibes in Zgłuchłe echa ("Deafened Echoes"), neoclassical elements in Tunel samotności ("The Tunnel of Loneliness") or the spoken-word-heavy Śmierć Samuela ("The Death of Samuel"). Apart from this eclectic approach to dark ambient, the thing that immediately caught my attention is the list of guests who appear on the album, including first and foremost one of my favourite Polish ambient artists Zguba (in the pretty industrial Każdy dzień w noc przechodzi ("Every Day Turns Into Night"), but also the German artists Martin Neuhold and EISENLAGER. The album is long and diverse but it works as a whole and I can appreciate that.

.​.​. Potrwa Wiecznie costs 7 EUR.

Check: Każdy dzień w noc przechodzi

Country: Poland

Genre: eclectic dark ambient

Label: Zoharum

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The KVB - Unity (2021)

Their first album was released over a decade ago, since then, the British duo The KVB released several works that shaped the world of electronic airy music with Always Then and 2018's Only Now Forever as perfect examples. This year, Nicholas Wood managed to release his solo album under the moniker Saccades and now, the band is back on it again with the new album called Unity.

The KVB's main characteristic is that they create very airy music without much of the guitar sounds. But unlike, say, SPC ECO, they don't go towards moody trip-hop but more into synthwave with post-punk's vibes. But you probably know about it already, it's no surprise to anyone interested in nugaze-like music. The quality of their music rarely disappoints and the new album, again, is a special thing on this year's timeline. The synthesized sounds and beats create engaging compositions enriched with guitar sounds (but they sit in the backgrounds, rarely driving the whole music structures) and with the airy backing vocals. Kat Day's vocals have this deep, post-punk hue, even though they are always properly dispersed and airy. 

But probably the most important thing is how well the band can adapt the synthwave's catchiness. Literally every song on the album has a memorable melody and constitutes a potential hit. In this sea of catchiness, I was particularly impressed by World on Fire with its minimalist but highly contagious chorus with a little unsettling lyrics.

Unity costs 7.99 GBP.

Saccades - Flowing Fades (2021)

Check: World on Fire

Country: UK

Genre: dreamy synthwave

Label: Invada Records

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Blankenberge - Everything (2021)

When they debuted back in 2017 with their Radiogaze, there was little doubt that it was the beginning of an Eastern shoegaze icon in the works. And four years and three album later, you can safely agree that the Russian Blankenberge is one of the best heavy shoegaze bands out there and they just proved it with Everything.

This is not indie rock with shoegaze elements, this is not airy dream pop, the Petersburg's outfit clearly went all in the true shoegaze tunes. Their sound is extremely loud with tons of guitar-based walls of noise and subtle, barely legible vocals. Everything is designed to suck the audience into the loud and psychedelic world of noise, bury them within reverbs, trap them under layers of sound. And this is the best feeling ever with Yana Guselnikova's Slowdive-like vocals making this a sweet and memorable experience. There's little point in recommending any particular song, the whole album feels like a coherent and well-leveled whole, a noise adventure if you will. But some parts do feel even more ethereal thanks to the density of dispersed backing vocals that fill out and compliment the guitar noise, like it is the case with the title track Everything.

The lyrics here deal with the human lives' basic but fundamental questions: what's the nature of happiness, what's the nature of relationships and, yes, about being high as a kite. Everything fits shoegaze's euphoric and a bit bombastic vibes and I'm here to feel that. Can't wait for some live gigs by the Russians and their friends from Life on Venus.

Everything costs 7 USD.

Blankenberge - Radiogaze (2017)

Blankenberge - More (2019)

Check: Everything 

Country: Russia

Genre: true shoegaze

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Postcards - After the Fire, Before the End (2021)

Last year, the Lebanese band Postcards' album The Good Soldier was one of my biggest discoveries and best dream pop works of 2021 in general. That said, they are together as a music group for almost a decade now. This year they are back with another airy album called After the Fire, Before the End.

Their music is built on the way Julia Sabra's extremely dreamy and accordingly dispersed vocals contrast with very rock-like guitar's crisp sound. Starting from the beautiful Mother Toungue, the album shows mostly compositions characterized by the slowcore pace and ballad-like, poignant atmosphere. The guitars are the only noisier elements and they really do sound inspired by some kind of grunge or americana rock, there's a certain dusty vibe of the Western audible here, perhaps not so much as in the new Holy Motors' music, but it's there. The only song that suddenly bursts out with faster pace and rock'n'roll-like energy is Bruises. But when you start to dance, it's already over and you are sinking in Flowers in Your Hair's ballad quicksand again. 

And this dreamy atmosphere covers a lot gloomier lyrics. The band's background certainly leaves a big mark on Sabra's lyrics that include tons of allusions to violence, war and the Beirut's explosion from the last year's summer (in the poignant Red) as well as to the fate of women in the Middle East. The whole album, both music- and lyrics-wise, culminates in If I Die, a song filled with the feeling of utter hopelessness that at the same time borders with the up-lifting conclusion; it's the "there's nothing left so we can start again" kind of feeling. 

After the Fire, Before the End costs 10 USD.

Postcards - The Good Soldier (2020)

Check: If I Die

Country: Lebanon

Genre: dreamy slowcore

Label: T3 Records

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Allison Lorenzen - Tender (2021)

The Colorado-based artist Allison Lorenzen is better known as half of the School Dance duo, but this November she launched her solo career with an album called Tender. And just like the title suggests, she gave up her band's darkwave for a gentler and cosier pop tunes.

The album is filled with slowcore/art pop compositions that borrow something from the post-punk and synthwave genres, but the balance surely is tilted towards the warmth of dreamy pop. The compositions are usually strongly based on the moody and never-hurried piano keys and Lorenzen's soft but haunting vocals. This results in an extremely intimate and reflection-fuelling experience that is only deepened by what is going on in the backgrounds. This is the realm of the subtlest guitar noise (so touching in Afterthought!) and ethereal backing vocals, taking what's best from the noise pop and dream pop's catalogue. 

She's not alone in this either; the album features help by her fellow slowcore/ambient pop star Madeline Johnston a.k.a. Midwife (especially well-provided in the single track Vale) as well as Daniel Patrick Henry, better known as Memory Tapes. The music's intimate sadness is not a coincidence here. The whole album is very much focused on the problems of the heart, the emotional changes one has to go through, as Lorenzen is said to be "nursing old wounds from the end of a relationship and her musical project School Dance" and dealing with those in the form of music. And this is something that can be felt on the album particularly well.

Tender costs 7 USD.

Check: Vale

Country: Colorado, US

Genre: piano-based ambient pop

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Catherine Graindorge - Eldorado (2021)

The Belgian violinist and composer Catherine Graindorge, known for her collaboration with Hugo Race on the 2017's Long Distance Operators, creates music that can be called an experimental take on neoclassicism. Her new album, produced by John Parish himself, Eldorado brings a unique experience for those who need something ambitious and aesthetically pleasing at the same time.

In her music, Graindorge makes use of strings, harmonium and electronica to create mesmerizing and one-of-a-kind compositions. There are parts in which her music sounds like your favourite neoclassical beauty but there's even more parts with less obvious, more experimental sound - like the noisy Eldorado for instance. There's also her voice present in some tracks and, especially the spoken word parts, it adds up to the mysterious ambiance of the whole release. The said ambiance gets darker and quieter the further you go through the album, the finishing tracks sound like the most beautiful instrumental drone with the atmosphere of melancholy and general sadness.

Eldorado costs 7 EUR.

Check: Kangaroos in Fire

Country: Belgian

Genre: experimental neoclassical

Label: tak:til

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Dear Laika - Pluperfect Mind (2021)

Isabelle “Izzy” Thorn creates some very experimental, noisy and artful pop music and she does it a lot: in the last four years, she released seven longer albums and one of them, Rinzen from 2018 was one of the shiniest gems on my blog that year. This time, the British artist comes back with perhaps the most nuanced and complex album called Pluperfect Mind.

Her music is strongly affected by her avant-garde approach to music. Thorn uses difficult melodies sown up from various matters into a chaotic and very atmospheric whole glued together by her unbelievably airy but poignant voice. There's next to everything in her music: electronic subtlety, harsh noise, instrumental randomness, choir appearances and, the most important part, mystery and uniqueness of its high-art theatrical style. It's not one to have fun to or to pick up melodies from; it's more like sounds for lonely and careful admiration. It's not music, it's "a beautiful and singular oddity which exists in the liminal space between dreamworlds and a blurry, watercoloured version of reality".

This is not an easy music but this was not meant to be either. It's very fitting as it talks about things that are not easy either. The main theme of the album is isolation, a topic so very well known right now, but it's also about Thorn's experience with being a trans-gender person. It is painful and poignant and lines like the one from Ubi Sunt (yawning ocean/ of days adrift and calm/ catatonic, watching sundown/ tremble against the wall/ washed out and faint/ i wait for nightfall) describe the lonely times of depression so accurately and poetically at the same time. This album's release  is one of the biggest events this year.

Pluperfect Mind costs 10 USD.

Dear Laika - Rinzen (2018)

Check: Asleep in Wildland Fire

Country: UK

Genre: avant-garde pop

Label: NNA Tapes

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SEIMS - FOUR (2021)

Simeon Bartholomew is the conceptual leader of the Australian experimental post-rockers from SEIMS. The band bought me two years ago with their shorter album 3.1 and now they show their fourth, particularly crazy album. 

Although the release is advertised as mathrock drawing a lot from the music of 65daysofstatic and such, the first thing one notices about the band's music is the use of neoclassical instruments (violins and cellos). It's pretty special as they don't serve as only romantic ornaments, the whole compositions are based on them; there's little to none heavy guitar walls of noise; in this aspect, the Australians make extremely artsy and jazzy music. Of course the mathrock references are not a mistake here; those delicate instruments create a real madness here: the paces change, the melodies are subjective, the next part of a composition is anyone's guess. And this is all created by music that in many places feels practically orchestral (the louder parts of Stranded. Isolated. for instance) and less frequently, surprisingly guitar-heavy (Biting Tongues and The Mountain's Scream).

The album was mixed and mastered by people from the very top of the Australian post-rock society and it can be felt in the music's quality. The album is said to include their most "engaging and hypnotic material" to date and it surely feels the most experimental, one the artists had a lot of fun when making. And judging by their modus operandi, I can bet money on that the next album will be titled V.

FOUR  costs 10 AUD.

SEIMS - 3.1 (2019)

Check: Biting Tongues

Country: Australia

Genre: artsy mathrock

Label: Art As Catharsis

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MØL - Diorama (2021)

They debuted on the world's stage (and on my blog) back in 2018 with the spectacular dose of post-metal experience in JORD. Now they show a follow-up in the form of very heavy and very noisy Diorama. The Danish band managed to get a circle of devoted followers who will not be disappointed with the new material.

The new album seems to be a bit more massive I think and more vocals-heavy too. Maybe it's just an impression but there's so much of Kim Song Sternkopf's vocals that sound very emotional with those desperate and angry vibes all over (and also horror-like, very metal ones in Tvesind). Super interesting is balancing them with contrasting, ethereal female guest voices of Mirza Radonjica and Kathrine Shepard in a couple of songs. The rapid Photophobic slowers a bit in the middle to make room for Radonjica's airy vibes and feels even faster afterwards. The change of pace feels really well also in Vestige, a brilliant track that won't leave anyone standing still.

I'm not huge fan of the clean vocals that appear from time to time; to me they always have some of the alt rock's kitsch, but luckily, they are barely noticeable on the album. What is better audible is the might and weight of the guitar music here; their sound is crisp and satisfying, slowly building up to the extremely massive finish in the album's last track Diorama. I can't not mention the album art that strikes with this kind of attractive artistic minimalism, I like it a lot.

Diorama costs 8 USD.

møl - JORD (2018)

Check: Diorama

Country: Denmark

Genre: desperate post-metal

Label: Nuclear Blast

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Fotoform - Horizons (2021)

Fotoform is a Seattle-based dream pop band who, after releasing their second album, got acknowledged by the biggest, including the iconic KEXP. No wonder, their, as they call it, dreamy post-punk is very catchy and atmospheric at the same time. You can now check it out on Horizons.

Their own description is actually very fitting: post-punk influences the way the songs are based very much on the thick, easily recognizable bass line while fuzzy guitars are left in the backgrounds most of the time. The dreamy ingredient surely include vocals by Kim House. They are properly dream-like with tons of reverbs and high-pitched beauty. There's a fine balance between them expressing actual lyrics and serving as haze-inducing backing vocals - it is so well audible in Running and You Set Fire to the Sun - a lively and melodic track with House's voice put on a pedestal. 

My favourite ones have to be the more atmospheric, moody ones. I really enjoy how the opening in Shadow Spreads is finished with the abruptly introduced silence, but songs like Let's Shut Out the World, Take and  We Crystallize make the true dreamy experience with vocals focused on creating the atmosphere and toned down melodies. Especially the finish in the latter creates a well-cooked psychedelic and noisy soundscape, one that is perfect to dream to. 

Horizons costs 8 USD.

Check: We Crystallize

Country: Washington, US

Genre: dreamy post-punk

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tom's diner - сестре (2021)

Tom's diner is a Russian band that "caters to wanderers of all sorts with an exquisite psychedelic post-rock". Their usual lineup involves more traditional for the genre guitar and drums, however, they decided to do something differently recently and so the EP сестре was born.

On this release, the Russians perform their compositions only with the help of piano keys and cello strings. It comes obvious that it makes the whole EP unbelievably climatic and beautiful. The compositions here are slow and focused on creating the intimate, discreet atmosphere. The artists decided to do so to "reveal the melody and feelings of the compositions, without being distracted by anything" and even though the leader of the band had to learn how to play on piano to record this album, it sounds like it achieved its goal. Almost all of the compositions here are the new versions of already existing tacks except for the only new one called рядом. They all, however, sound so well in their own slow and focused way.

сестре costs 2 USD.

Check: озёра (piano-cello version)

Country: Russia

Genre: neoclassical

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LLNN - Unmaker (2021)

One of the hottest heavy post-rock/post-metal names of the last month: the Danish LLNN are back with their third album and, damn, is Unmaker a loud and massive masterpiece. It is filled with the blueprints for post-metal music with extremely heavy guitars, striking compositions and impressive vocals.

The vocals by Christian Bonnesen have those particularly desperate-sounding qualities, they may sound angry or dangerous but I always assume there's some desperation in those and this makes them even more poignant and difficult not to be impressed with. Especially when they lead a composition towards such a touching and loud finish as it is the case with Scion. In Desecrator, on the other hand, they are joined by Matt McGachy, the vocalist in Cryptopsy, and his particularly deep and, honestly, very scary growls, ones that couldn't be more different and still located within the metal spectrum. This is this kind of opposition that makes a song a classic instantly.

But the vocals are not everything. I am more happy with the guitar compositions the Danish proposed on their new release. They strike the perfect balance between metal's uberfast pace and post-metal's massive slowness and, what's the most important, present the perfect quality of noise. There's something in this guitar blizzard that makes it bigger than the compositions they function in. Bigger than music itself. I love how ridiculously poignant and crushing they sound in pieces like Division. The movie music composer Peter Albrechtsen said about LLNN's new album that "[he's] obsessed with music that explores what sound can do to our body, to our mind, to our imagination" and now it's clear why we feel this music with our whole selves.

Unmaker costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Scion

Country: Denmark

Genre: massive post-metal

Label: Pelagic Records

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