Bad Pritt - Debris (2023)

The Italian artist appeared already on my blog, beck in 2018 with this self-titled album. It's the highest time to mention him again as the music on his new album, Debris, should make a lasting impression on anyone.

The musician uses various means to create his gloomy, unnerving soundscapes. The neoclassical bits in his compositions can be equally beautiful and nerve-wrecking (as they are in February 6th). The deep industrial electronica surprises the audience from time to time with the clear bass lines. The overwhelming noise that can bring madness and make you lose all the peace in your soul. Everything here is intense and I feel like this is where the "cinematic" part of Bad Pritt's music description comes to place: there's no cinematic grandeur here, but a lot of emotions and very cinematic way of expressing them. I would love to see the movie for which this would be a good soundtrack.

Debris costs 7 EUR.

Bad Pritt - Bad Pritt (2018)

Check: September 27th

Country: Italy

Genre: cinematic neoclassical

Label: Shyrec

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Dream Field 209 - Fading (2023)

Adam Boehm from Wisconsin makes his music as Dream Field 209 and his cozy and atmospheric dreamy ambient has this something that draws attention of the audience, as proved by his new album called Fading.

It seems that Boehm is extremely hard-working as this is his 3rd (!) album this year already. I have not listened to all of them, but I can say that Fading includes some particularly mesmerizing music. The artist doesn't use vocals but, regardless, dream pop is the best way to describe those oneiric, hazy and beautiful soundscapes. They are all about subtle synth noise and guitar-based, simple but pretty melodies that are sometimes closer ambient and sometimes closer to acoustic bedroom pop. The longer the album goes, the more droney the compositions become and it ends with the faintest dronescape in Iced Coffee and Lavender Clouds. This means that the album delivers what its title promised: the fading of music that feels like the year that slowly turns into the stillness of winter. 

Fading costs 5 USD.

Check: Shirakawa Snowfall

Country: Wisconsin, US

Genre: dreamy soundscapes

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sadness / oculi melancholiarum - springgarden (2023)

Damián Antón Ojeda and Victoria Carmilla Hazemaze, or as they are better known sadness and oculi melancholarium, joined forces to release a fantastic split album earlier this year. springgarden feels like a perfect soundtrack for greeting the intoxicating season that is upon us.

The two artist who feel extremely comfortable at creating the lo-fi, bedroom blackgaze with a lot of influences from everywhere. The first two tracks are provided by Ojeda and they are surprisingly lively and energetic. The fast-paced compositions do have the signature haze and noisy bits (quite long one in fact), but the main thing one focuses on is the signature, dispersed but definitely not subtle vocals and the pace. In especially love the free approach to the structure of the tracks with long drone'y passages that divide the instances of the noisy shoegaze madness. The part delivered by Hazemaze is what we would call a true blackgaze: angry metal vocalizations and oneiric, subtle vocals on top of guitar-based but also very synthy and extremely flow-reach music is what the genre is about. 

springgarden costs whatever you want to pay.

Sadness - Rain (2018)

Check: Best Friend

Country: Mexico/Illinois, US

Genre: lo-fi electronic shoegaze/blackgaze

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where mermaids drown - Reminisce (2023)

It's been already two years since the French band where mermaids drown showed their first short album called And the Raging Winds Do Blow and what a debut it was! Now it's time for the artists, after a great gig at last year's dunk!festival, to prove that they belong to the most exciting new post-rock outfit in Europe.

On their new album, the band explores the way the relationships between humans are built and how they die, making room for creating life-long memories. And their approached the theme with a set of already-proved tools they are really good at: creating very moody, very atmospheric post-rock that is ready to serve slower, moodier peaces that lead to loud and massive fragments of guitar bliss. I like dividing post-rock into two categories: the more guitar-riff-melodies kind and the atmosphere-is-crucial one; where mermaids drown seem to be a perfect bridge over the two. One can't deny the thickness of the music layers here, but there's a good deal of guitar melodies (those faster and slower as well) - a really well-balanced album.

Reminisce costs 10 EUR.

Where Mermaids Drown - And the Raging Winds Do Blow (2021)

Check: Rio Plata

Country: France

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

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Ilajan - Villes de Papier (2023)

Ilajan is a debuting singer-songwriter who keeps her music in a very dreamy atmosphere. This is the first EP ever in her discography and Villes de Papier promises a lot for future.

Released by Hummus Records, album is made by Ilajan and her sister, Indiana, who "shape their own delicately oneiric atmospheres, mixing guitars, voices and electronic experimentations". Their compositions are as dreamy as they can be with slow and cozy music drowning the audience with its beauty and calming abilities. The singer/songwriter component is very strongly present here with the artist's soft vocals as well as emotional and particularly poetic lyrics being the focal point of each song (especially mysteriously appealing when sang in French!). I'm reluctant in making comparisons here as I'm not an expert in these genres, but if I was to make a guess, I'd say it's what Tori Amos would sound like if she decided to venture to the dream pop music territories. 

Villes de Papier costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Mad

Country: Switzerland

Genre: dreamy singer/songwriter

Label: Hummus Records

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Mike Lazarev - Sacred Tonalities (2023)

The Ukraine-born artist Mike Lazarev has released his first album through Past Inside the Present and at least 5th in general recently. Sacred Tonalities is meant to evoke a "meditative state of mind. Like the ocean. Like breathing" and it definitely succeeds.

This mesmerizing album is a wave of sound layers that overlap each other, creating one deep whole that can easily swallow the listener into its abysses. Its soft and calm drones feel as if they could as easily burst into a sonic chaos but they just don't feel like it at the moment. It was created to create a safe space for self-reflecting moments and it sure is this way, I just recognize more grandeur and more overwhelming potential here. It's clearly just like the ocean. 

Sacred Tonalities costs 7 USD.

Check: Tonality Number One

Country: Ukraine/UK

Genre: droney soundscape

Label: Past Inside the Present

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aMute - Days of Light & Let Go (2023)

aMute is a music project with a long history. Now Jérôme Deuson's solo project, it used to involve more people and debuted almost 20 years ago. Now, Deauson released the 8th album under this moniker and Days of Light & Let Go and it's as strange and moody as its cover art.

It's very difficult to label this music. It's safe to say that from the look of the cover art, you'd expect some kind of metal music, but it couldn't be further from truth. The compositions here are not loud, they are more into creating a particular kind of atmosphere, but you couldn't say they are slow or dragging. They are made of more or less subtle electronica with a great deal of organ-sounding keys (so great in Complaints & Thoughts). But most of the time here we spend with the darker kind of ambient music with or without vocals. There's a lot going on here genre-wise but everything is filtered with the same unnerving but interesting, horror-like but self-reflecting lenses and I appreciate it a lot. 

And once again, because I love it so much, the cover art is what draws attention to the album with the photography taken by a talented visual artist with a really cool name: Mothmeister.

Days of Light & Let Go costs 8 USD.

Check: Complaints & Thoughts

Country: Belgium

Genre: gothic electronica

Label: Hopedrive Editions

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Laikamorí - △​△​△ (2023)

The Peruvian artists who currently live in US, Laikamorí, made me fall in love with their unique and weird music with their fantastic debut Persōna five years ago. Now, they are back and △​△​△ proves that the debut was not a coincidence.

Based on electronic music that can be both lively and energetic as well as dark and gloomy, Laikamorí's compositions spark awe with how uniquely they sound. The industrial influences take over most of the tracks but they have to share with almost-dub-like electronica and noisy ambient parts. And this all is accompanied by one of the most interesting vocals out there: high-pitched and dreamy that express this partly gibberish partly poetic lyrics to make everything glow with the most attractive kind of musical mystery. 

And this is the first time I can post here, under a band picture I took personally. Apart from being extremely talented, the two artists proved to be super friendly when they spent some time in Kraków back in 2021.

△​△​△ costs 10 USD.

Laikamorí - Persōna (2018)

Check: Amok

Country: Peru/New York, US

Genre: ethereal wave

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Golden Hours - Golden Hours (2023)

Golden Hours may have just released their first album ever, but this is a band that involves a lot of talent and experience. Made up from musicians known from such bands as Gang Of Four, The Brian Jonestown Massacre or The Third Sound, the supergroup delivers their memorable post-punk music on the self-titled debut.

Everything here is as supposed: the compositions are based on very post-punk bass lines and very post-punk vocals (by The Third Sound's Hákon Adalsteinsson) but with extremely noisy guitars that spice everything up. Not to mention the catchy melodies that should make all the post-punkers out there dance and dance from the very first sounds to the last. And this all works also with slower tracks where the band focus on the noisy and unsettling atmosphere that in Dead On sounds like a lonely night on a cemetery. This album may just be the very essence of the slightly darker post-punk music and everyone should check it out.

Golden Hours costs 8 EUR (7 GBP).

Check: Calling Me Home

Country: Germany

Genre: noisy post-punk

Label: Fuzz Club

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Timelapse Aurora - In Defeat, I See the Future (2023)

Timelapse Aurora are from Italy and they create heavily guitar post-rock music with a story to tell. This sci-fi-sounding instrumental music is shown on their first ever album called In Defeat, I See the Future.

The album is described as a "wonderment of space that is both haunting and hypnotic". While their premise suggests a heavy use of electronica in their compositions, the post-rock here is still very guitar-oriented. But the artists prove that they don't have to resort to the sci-fi electronica to make sci-fi music. The very first sounds of the album prove that sci-fi is its important piece with a sampled voice saying about living in 2355 AD, not to mention the interesting, retro-futuristic cover art or track titles that show the artist interest in space exploration. But also the music itself is very often slower, more spacial thanks to the synth sounds and samples, making it a story from somewhere in the vast universe written with very solid post-rock music.

In Defeat, I See the Future costs 5 EUR.

Check: From Mars to Jupiter

Country: Italy

Genre: sci-fi post-rock

Label: Eternal Colossus Records

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CHAIGIDEL & NERATERRÆ - Lama​š​tu (2023)

Alessio Antoni is one of the ambient artists I respect the most. This time, he joins forces with CHAIGIDEl, making it a duo of extremely dark ambient music from Italy. They released their album Lama​š​tu  through Cyclic Law in March.

Once again, Antoni delivered what can be only described as a perfect dark ambient music. The gloomy and unnerving electronic drone soundscapes are made even more touching by whispering vocals and even some throat singing vocalization in A'Arab Zaraq. This theme of oriental-sounding elements is actually the unique leitmotif throughout the album, although it's not overwhelming. Because the overwhelming part is the darkness that speaks through the duo's music so well.

Lama​š​tu costs 8 EUR.

Kegaal - Pillars: Seeds of Ares (2020)

NERATERRÆ - Scenes from the Sublime (2020)

NERATERRÆ - The Substance of Perception (2019)

Check: A'Arab Zaraq

Country: Italy

Genre: dark ambient

Label: Cyclic Law

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terraplana - olhar pra tr​á​s (2023)

The underground very noisy music from Brazil makes another appearance on my blog. This time, it's all about the Curitiba-based terraplana who have recently released their first ever LP called olhar pra tr​á​s.

The album is kept in this very much melancholic atmosphere (the title itself translates to "Look back") which is built with the extremely noisy, lo-fi sounding guitars and dispersed vocals. The latter are provided by Stephani Heuczuk who, together with another band member, Cassiano Kruchelski, interestingly enough for me have names that give out some kind or Poland-related origins. Anyway, music-wise there's everything one would expect from the shoegaze music with strong lo-fi vibes: the guitar noise is something that reigns the compositions and makes an overwhelming effect on the audience with the melodies and vocals struggling to resurface. But this is what we are here for.

olhar pra tr​á​s costs 7 USD.

Check: memórias

Country: Brazil

Genre: lo-fi shoegaze

Label: Balaclava Records

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Full Moon Little House - Funeral (2023)

Kévin Navizet comes from Bretagne and leads the Full moon Little House band. The Frenchmen make an interesting, calm and dreamy take on indie music and it's definitely worth trying. Their debut LP called Funeral was released in March.

It's all about the subtle and oneiric (but not too subtle and oneiric) vocals and catchy (but not too catchy) melodies that makes this music so captivating. The music is also rich with psychedelic elements, but, as everything here, it's not overwhelming, but rather approachable. It's also fun to find out what kind of  artists the band are inspired by. My favourite is probably Suuns, as Eyes sounds like it could be taken from Suuns' Zeroes QC, one of my most favourite albums ever (also, June totally sounds like Radiohead towards the finish). The atmosphere here is a bit all over the place (there are elements of electronica, post-rock and other genres), but the unassuming vibes and great way of engaging the audience are what drives me to this album.

Funeral costs 8 EUR.

Check: Eyes 

Country: France

Genre: dreamy indie rock

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Excellent Skeleton - On Mercury Sea (2023)

The Cardiff-based Excellent Skeleton debuted this year with their combination of psychedelic noise scapes and traditional rock & roll" on the album called On Mercury Sea. And this is one solid and promising debut if I've ever seen one.

One of the music genre they quote as influential on their music is shoegaze, but it has to be said that the loud and noisy guitars sometimes give way to the lively melodies and unpretentious vocals (as in the very catchy Train Station). And if it is noisy, it is noisy in the style of Spiritualized: music as psychedelic as it can be packed in a good dose of loudness. This also includes the "choral" vocals that, for me, always felt like almost a gospel-like and I have a great sentiment for them. This debut from the British Isles sure sounds like happened some around two decades ago and I appreciate it very much. They know what they like in the music from back then and know what to do to achieve a similar sound, that's for sure.

On Mercury Sea costs 12 EUR (10 GBP).

Check: Mosquito

Country: Wales/UK

Genre: noisy psychedelic rock

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SPACESHIPS - Ruins (2023)

The experienced band from Indiana (a decade passed since their debut album I Am a Storm at Sea!!!) released their fourth album this year and, while I came for the the guest musician in the first track, I stayed for the overall quality of their heavy and enchanting music on Ruins.

For any shoegaze/nugaze fan who hasn't been living under a stone for last years, the highlight of the album is gotta be the guest appearance of Ryan Osterman (Holy Fawn) in the opening track. However, the band proves that they don't need the bait really as already the following track, Sinews, is at least as good with overwhelming guitar music and super catchy finish. But their music is not only about being loud; there's a surprising amount of slower, calmer tracks that go in the direction of a very oldschool rock music with inclusion of some interesting instruments like, I believe, saxophone in Seedlings. Those slightly retro vibes are only strengthened by the way the vocals feel.

But probably the most important thing about this album is how easy for the band was to create ultimately catchy tunes here. From Spillt to Sinews and Shared Graves: next to every composition here hides a super engaging part that suddenly appears and you forget about all of the noise: it's just the melody that matters.

Ruins costs 7 USD.

Check: Spillt

Country: Indiana, US

Genre: doomgaze

Label: Friend Club Records

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