Yoo Doo Right - A Murmur, Boundless to the East (2022)

The Montreal-based Yoo Doo Right were one of the biggest gigs during this year's dunk!festival. Live they present a loud and exciting volcano of emotions but on their albums their music feels more nuanced and artistically complex. A year after their fantastic debut on Don't Think You Can Escape Your Purpose, they released at least as good followup in the form of A Murmur, Boundless to the East.

And accordingly, they describe their own sound as a concoction of numerous genres that in the end results in "crafting a unique sound that could be described as a >>car crash in slow motion<<". Such a fitting summary and I can totally see it: many different elements everywhere, not-too-fast tempo and the feeling of overwhelming energy. This is their music all right. Probably the best way to simplify it is labeling the music as psychedelic post-rock. On one hand the complicated structures of the compositions as well as the very psychedelic rock-specific vocals, on the other the guitar passages that grow and grow in a tension-building way (so great in SMB) that leave no one unsatisfied. 

The two worlds are iconically combined in the album-finishing Feet Together, Face Up, on the Front Lawn, a psychedelic rock anthem sung in short phrases that ends with mind-blowing guitar heaviness.

A Murmur, Boundless to the East costs 7.5 EUR (9.99 CAD).

yoo doo right - Don't Think You Can Escape Your Purpose (2021)

Check: Feet Together, Face Up, on the Front Lawn

Country: Canada

Genre: psychedelic post-rock

Label: Mothland

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Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Vale (2022)

The "Romanian post-rock band about going up mountains and enjoying oneself" (that mostly describes their iconic name) is back with more music! Their last album, La Deal, accompanied me when I was on my way to the last dunk!festival when the Romanians played as well; the new one, La Vale, made coming back from this year's dunk! easier.

And the two albums are really very much connected - not only the album covers suggest it, the first one's title translates to "Uphill", the second's to "Downhill". But the sound of La Vale doesn't feel like going down, really. The band is fluent in creating impressive and very guitar-oriented compositions that more often than not end with monumental crescendos (thus it is still more like going upwards than downwards imo). The music here feels heavy but also fast at the same time (which is so well-audible in Nu Mai Comandăm De La Ăștia), like a speeding train that can't brake so easily even if the driver wants to. Having said that, the Romanians' most characteristic ability is probably writing the instrumental composition in one of the most melodic ways I know within the genre.

La Vale costs 10 USD.

Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - La Deal (2019)

Check: Nu Mai Comandăm De La Ăștia

Country: Romania

Genre: guitar post-rock

Label: SWANBOY Music

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瀚海瀾汐 - 趣稚錄 | 遺妄 (2022)

If Instagram is to be trusted, 瀚海瀾汐 is a solo project by Junny Chung, a musician from the Guangdong region in China. The artist released two short EPs this year and I'll be looking at the first one of the lot, called 趣稚錄 | 遺妄.

Both EPs are said to be parts of a four-piece whole entitled 遺妄 ("The Delusion"). 趣稚錄 | 遺妄 (that apparently translates to "Funny and Childish Records") consists of four compositions that show some emotional and atmospheric post-rock music with delicate and very sad vocals. The music is based on the balance between synth's beauty and guitars' ruthless grandeur, in many places achieving those extremely bombastic but very satisfying levels of music emotions that can easily make the listener sob. Especially with the addition of the artsy, theatre-like vocals, so important in the short ballad 扯纸鹞. However, the mountain tops-reaching, uplifting and otherworldly beautiful post-rock sounds are what really defines this album.

趣稚錄 | 遺妄 costs 5 USD.

Check: 再见 阿尔兹海默先生

Country: China

Genre: ethereal post-rock

Label: Weary Bird Records

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Youth Novels - Blue (2022)

It's been already fiver years since the Poznań-based duo released their last EP. While Chaos I Create successfully married catchy synthpop with moody dream pop, their new album shows their melancholic and super atmospheric face. Hence the name: Blue

The Ania Babrakowska and Emil Nowak duo has a fantastic ability to effortlessly engage the audience into their dreamy and nostalgic world. The title track that opens the short EP has its catchy tune and fairly energetic pace but it is, most certainly, a beautiful and tear-jerking ballad. And as such, it sets the tone for the whole album with four perfectly moody compositions. No wonder that they describe their music as meandering between "quasi-acoustic compositions, ambient soundscapes [and] widely understood alternative music". There is a healthy dose of discreet and attractive electronica that builds the backgrounds with tons of ethereal, dreamy af backing vocals all over the place.

The album is closed by The Moon, a track that features Iwona Skwarek's vocals, the artist known from Rebeka and Shyness!, very popular projects on the Polish offstream music scene. This song shows the most the artists' love for the acoustic sound. I really hope we won't have to wait for more of this magical music so long as before. 

Blue costs 5 EUR (20 PLN).

Youth Novels - Chaos I Create EP (2017)

Check: Blue

Country: Poland

Genre: synth dream pop

Label: Golba Music

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Altair - Siempre habrá luces en otro lugar (2022)

The third album from the Spanish Altair is here. After the fantastic Nuestro enemigo back in 2019, Siempre habrá luces en otro lugar makes a perfect comeback to the angsty and energetic world of the band's post-hardcore music.

There's something in Altair's music that keeps me interested in their releases despite the fact that I'm not really a post-hardcore person. However, the screamy vocals here sound honest and very, very engaging. They sound like a true scream of anger and desperation without forgetting about being part of a music composition. And true to this vibe, the album starts with screamed out "The circle does not stop/ The rust of the years flies over me, creating a dense black sphere", tons of self-conscious thoughts of a human being that can be universally relatable. And anxious over. 

This atmosphere breaks at some point when in Divino tesoro the music suddenly becomes an out-of-place pop-rock derivative, but it doesn't last and the whole song dies in static noise. The whole album combines post-hardcore's desperation and, curiously, hope as even the title that translates to "There will always be lights somewhere else" can be read in two different ways.

Siempre habrá luces en otro lugar costs whatever you want to pay.

Altair - Nuestro enemigo (2019)

Check: Réplica (nadie por quien llorar) 

Country: Spain

Genre: desperate post-hardcore

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Casiotone - Progetto Zero Zero (2022)

Casiotone are Julien Bernard and Maryline Auderset who together make up a post-rock outfit from the western part of Switzerland. They debuted recently and while Progetto Zero Zero took me by surprise, I quickly understood what a unique and impressive take on the genre it presents.

The short album begins with The Dreamer, a track that is slow but it's slowness of continental plates, overwhelming and unstoppable. I love the work the artist put in the keyboard sound-infused compositions. I'm a sucker for including those in post-rock music, but in the duo's work, it's on another level. It seems that the guitar noise in many fragments is just a background for the flood of key sounds. But even when it's not about the keyboards, the sound of Casiotone is different than your typical post-rock outfit's. It's more nuanced and focused on the slow-paced atmosphere building without being particularly harsh and loud. And it works like charm.

I love the flow the compositions show - it's next to impossible to stop a track halfway through. And despite the fact that this music is not super loud - the darkness and heavy atmosphere is well audible here. I adore this unique, artsy style and honestly can't wait for more music from the duo.

Progetto Zero Zero costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: The Dreamer

Country: Switzerland

Genre: synth post-rock

Label: Cold Smoke Records

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Mutiara Damansara - Annual Winter Depression (2022)

Mutiara Damansara are the "most famous French band in Malaysia" as their called their project after a township in this Asian country. But also Malaysia is quite known for their metal and post-rock scene so the "music for sad people in their 30s", as the artists call it themselves, should appeal to their Asian fans as well. As it is the case with their new release Annual Winter Depression.

The album has a long history. It was first recorded "in 2010 when Mutiara Damansara was one-person band and Charlize was only 17 years old", then a second version came out in 2016 but only the third version from this year satisfied the artists. And I have to agree with them. The additional synths make their music smooth and extremely satisfying, a perfect rendition of blackgaze's essence. In their music, I can hear something from their compatriots of Alcest (especially in the usage of synths) but the vocals are way more into the more post-metal instances of the genre. The "shoegazed" black metal screams sound utterly melancholic and, for me, this is blackgaze's ultimate goal.

It gets weirder when the "clear" vocals come from time to time. I must say, I'm not a fan. But the synth-guitar bliss that dominates the soundscape clearly makes up for this in my ears. This summer, the duo continues their career with a new album called Pearls and I'm very curious how it will turn out.

Annual Winter Depression costs 1 EUR.

Check: Annual Winter Depression

Country: France

Genre: atmospheric blackgaze

Label: Bonne Santé Records

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40 Days Without Water - 40 Days Without Water (2022)

Coming from France, 40 Days Without Water are one of the latest additions to Shore Dive Records' portfolio. A noisy and melodic addition. The trio released new album last March and it's an interesting mix of psychedelic genres resulting in a moody dream pop work.

I like how genuine and intimate this material feels. There's a certain lo-fi atmosphere audible here but also the noisy guitar music is somewhat hidden in the backgrounds. The compositions are ruled by the soft and moody vocals that feel very, very close to the listener. This makes the album close to slowcore genre, especially that the pace is never rushed, as it's all about creating a poetic and moody atmosphere. Even when the guitars wake up and try to create some loud and noisy passages, the results are less of overwhelming blizzards but more of interesting flavours added to the overall slowcore/dream pop compositions.

40 Days Without Water costs 5 USD.

Check: We Woke Up Early 

Country: France

Genre: lo-fi noisy slowcore

Label: Shore Dive Records

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masato abe - circulation (2022)

Masato Abe released his second album, Flew Out from Birth, two years ago and stole my attention with his atmospheric and airy soundscapes. This year he's back with some more music released on the new album called circulation.

The Japanese artist's music is based on moody ambient soundscapes that are helped by neoclassical elements to result in an extremely ethereal blend of genres. The many layers stack on each other, creating a dense and thick ambient haze on top of which occasional piano sounds feel like the most beautiful thing in the whole universe. The soundscapes here have heavy introspective abilities that can help you focus on the feelings they evoke - most probably calm awe with traces of melancholia.

circulation costs whatever you want to pay.

Masato Abe - Flew Out from Birth (2020)

Check: landing

Country: Japan

Genre: neoclassical ambient

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Gravity Failed - Tape Therapy (2022)

A Lincoln, UK-based artist who creates electronica-filled music passages that serve as backgrounds to spoken word lyrics - this is Gravity Failed. From what I can tell, the musician has just debuted with a mysterious EP called Tape Therapy.

The soundscapes we can witness on the album have many different faces: from the lively and filled with this synthy energy that makes everything more interesting in I Can't Be Better Than I Am to extremely airy and ethereal in the sacral-like No Numbers. But the project's main characteristic are the poetic and poignant lyrics in the form of spoken word, noir movies-like vocals that present a lot of story-building vibes, perhaps more prose than poetry in fact. I'm always keen on discovering new approaches to vocals and this is certainly an interesting one. I wonder for whom this is a therapy - is it something that helps the artist or is it supposed to lead the audience toward some kind of katharsis?

Tape Therapy costs 0.75 EUR (0.5 GBP).

Check: Tape Therapy

Country: UK

Genre: spoken word electronica

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Deadhead - Bad Dog (2022)

Deadhead are Jonny Gillard and Rob Harvey, a post-rock duo from UK who have just debuted with a very promising album called Bad Dog.

The duo's post-rock is heavy and noisy but at the same time more energetic than atmospheric. It is not particularly focused on showy guitar riffs, but the focal point is to transfer some of the fantastic energy onto the audience. Until, of course, the band decide there's room for some slower piece like it is with the piano-led ballad Stay Back. But it's an exception - most of the compositions are rapid and sonically overwhelming, based on the good flow of guitar sections and some interesting effects (like in Orrible Lot). This is the kind of post-rock music that doesn't feel like *only* a duo but sounds like a full-fledged band that also deserves more attention for their impressive debut. Also, I'm very curious if the title of U.R.O.K has something to do with the Polish word meaning "charm, spell".

Bad Dog costs 8.5 EUR (7 GBP).

Check: Ferity

Country: UK

Genre: guitar post-rock

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Stella Star - Stella Star (2022)

After Strangers in My House, Stella Star is another dreamy band coming from Kraków. The Poles create music that is "bordering on shoegaze and dream pop" and finally showed some longer material on the debuting self-titled EP this spring.

Created in 2020 when the pandemics started to wreck havoc in the lives of people around the globe, the band was a kind of therapy for the artists to help them survive the difficult time. While their music clearly draws a lot from the dream pop genre, including the dense guitar-based compositions, the accents are put slightly differently here. Małgorzata Buracka's vocals are clearer than it's customary for the genre and the songs overall leaning more towards art pop with noisy components than full-on noise pop. Especially in the songs sung in Polish - perhaps it's my personal bias, but they seem to me to draw heavier from the Polish pop tradition.

Buracka's lyrics can be extremely moody, especially in my favourite song on the album, Beast from the East. "We are dancing in the storm/ With snow around/ With ice touching my skin/ I feel alive" make some of the most ethereal lines I heard recently. The Polish band proves that you don't have to be particularly noisy in order to achieve the same oneiric results other noise/dream pop projects do.

Stella Star costs 2.5 EUR (10 PLN).

Check: Beast from the East

Country: Poland

Genre: dreamy art pop

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Jōetsu Shore - Stranded (2022)

I couldn't find anything on this mysterious project online. Except for the fact that the artist is from a small city in the north of France and that they release a good noise/shoegaze album... every month since last December. I chose Stranded, the May album, to feature on this blog.

I like how energetic the guitar music here feels. For long parts, it's an instrumental music with pedal effects that clearly feel shoegaze-like. The utterly dispersed vocals join a bit later and their withdrawn, background nature makes them extremely atmospheric and dream-inducing. This is the kind of music that is as loud as well as oneiric. The guitar backgrounds can be overwhelming in some parts (as in the great finish of Whatever) but there's also a good deal of nuance in the compositions they are part of like in Strained where the melody is created by distinct bass line while guitars are focused on generating drone-like noise. 

This is this kind of project that deserves more recognition, also outside of Bandcamp. The quality of the noise here is top-notch while the whole compositions remain otherworldly dreamy.

Stranded costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Whatever

Country: France

Genre: dreamy shoegaze

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Golden Trebuchet - Brilliant Gemstones (2022)

Coincidentally, this week's Golden Trebuchet is already the second artist I post about this month, who claims to be from the very sparsely populated, arctic territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen. And again, while I doubt that it is backed by reality, the nature of the artist's music clearly explains why they chose those desolate regions for their alternative homeland.

Golden Trebuchet is a music projects with clear and, quite frankly, very impressive visual side with all of those black and gold graphics on their Bandcamp account. But most importantly, it is a music project that delivers immersive experiences in the form of drone soundscapes that sound as if they could have been recorded on the far north part of Europe. Some parts of the release comprise of soothing ambient that flows through the speakers like a northern wind while others, especially towards the end, are more like the most uninviting but impressive in many ways blizzards. I like how conceptual the whole project is and that everything seems to be coherent. And the well-done ambient music certainly fits it as well.

Brilliant Gemstones costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Benitoite

Country: ?

Genre: drone soundscape

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Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet - III (2022)

A week after this year's edition of Dunk!Festival, I can safely say that while I witnessed tons of fantastic live gigs there run by artists I know and love, the one that turned out to be my biggest discovery certainly is the Swedish band of Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet. The festival was the first occasion to listen to their new material, coincidentally released just before the event.

The album, simply titled III, is a perfect example of the approach to post-rock I value the most: the accents are put towards making atmospheric and dark-sounding music with a lot of grandeur and heaviness. This kind of instrumental music successfully adopted by God Is an Astroanut in recent years, and also played by bands such as TESA, Barrens or Year of No Light, is unbelievably impressive, especially live when the audience can experience the dark passion flowing from the artists together with the torrents of sweat. The heights of this music are made of ecstatic passages that bring on all the monumental feelings with the unlimited flow of the blissful guitar noise.

As the band call their own modus operandi, it's all about "mixing darker and heavier themes with fragility" and so there's a certain amount of minutes on III devoted to the quieter, subtly guitar build ups that always end up with heavy crescendos eventually. If this is not the peak of post-rock genre, I don't know what will be.

III costs  10 EUR (100 SEK).

Check: Astra

Country: Sweden

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

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Crows - Beware Believers (2022)

Three years after their debut album, Silver Tongues, the London-based Crows are coming back with the energetic followup in Beware Believers. Their post-punk is dark and gloomy but also fast as hell and very much dance-inducing. 

No wonder that the album was released by Fuzz Club. There's everything that can make you excited for an album there: super catchy and melodic compositions, post-punk's direct way of saying what's wrong in our lives, the noise rock's buzzing guitars and very expressive vocalist. In some parts they sound like Third Sound, in other like The Horrors: they don't shy away from creating a real guitar-centered noise bliss while still focusing on the post-punk-like vibes in the way they compose their short but intense songs and the way James Cox leads the audience with his distinct voice. On this postponed (due to the pandemics) album, the artists show their frustration with the British politics and Brexit decision, a topic which today, in the shortly living information era, seems to be yesterday's news but in reality still negatively affects tons of areas of our lives, not only in UK.

The label's compact description of the album is "loud, cathartic and abrasive" while Cox adds that it "felt like a marathon, a real endurance test that’s been a long winding road...". But it's such a good thing they managed to get through the road as the album is truly one of the best ones within the genre this year, with instant hits like Only Time, Healing, and Meanwhile making their way into my personal playlists with ease.

Beware Believers costs 9 EUR (7 GBP).

Check: Healing

Country: UK

Genre: noisy post-punk

Label: Bad Vibrations Records

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Mooring - Blue Dream (2022)

Mooring is a Guadalajara-based noise pop outfit that have recently released their debut album called Blue Dream. The Mexicans are really into the airy atmosphere and sweet melodies of dream pop and I appreciate it a lot in their music.

On their debut, the four-piece band is quick to evoke many interesting inspirations with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Letting Up Despite Great Faults as perfect examples here. Their music is an exciting blend of melody-heavy dream pop with harsher guitars and noise-filled backgrounds. The soft and dreamy vocals by Nathalia Romo and Carlos Kardusen correspond with the synth tunes and are balanced by heavier guitars that appear from time to time to lively up the dreamy compositions. Mooring's song are very good at leading a listener into a psychedelic trance, especially that their lyrics are in good part based on short and repetitive phrases written with a heavy dose of poetic mysteriousness. 

Blue Dream costs 8.5 EUR (175 MXN)

Check: Blue Dream

Country: Mexico

Genre: noise pop

Label: LATIGO

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hinako omori - a journey… (2022)

Back in March, Hinako Omori released her debut album a journey... and what a journey it takes the audience for! Or stream of consciousness as the artist suggests. The release is a perfect example of the kind of music that is meant for soothing emotions and making the listener's life simply better.

There's something special about the East Asian approach to ghost ambient pop; the artists like Green Horizon, Ichiko Aoba or everyone at Ricco Label prove it time after time. Omori is no exception here. Although residing in UK, she was born in Japan and must have taken with her some of this ghostly beauty and put it onto the debut album. It "combines inner healing and natural landscapes into in an immersive cartography of the mind in ambient electronics" - and the word "landscapes" is not a coincidence here, Omori hides tons of field recordings within the drone compositions, making them alive and filled with the primal stress relief abilities. The album really feels like a walk through a forest during a warm, summer night and I love it. 

And there's another focus point of the artist as she presents interest in the healing properties of sounds. This is an album engineered to heal and make your life easier, even if for a moment. If it's not for the particular frequencies Omori uses, it's certainly true for her soothing vocals - the gems of airy and ethereal singing, often sounding like extremely intimate whispers flying directly into your ear and mind. Subtle melodies flow effortlessly through the air; any listener is bound to catch themselves daydreaming very quickly.

a journey… costs 9 EUR (7 GBP).

Check: Will You Listen In

Country: Japan/UK

Genre: nature-inspired ambient pop

Label: Houndstooth

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