ŁŚ Magazine before 5NDREAS: One Last Moment (FR)

My blog became the official media partner of the 5NDREAS Festival and my task is to fill in the remaining 5 weeks of wait with something interesting. And what could be more interesting than reading about the bands that are about to play on the stage at Feierwerk Kranhalle in Munich? Yeah? Let's have another one today.

The most mysterious act of the whole festival as One Last Moment hasn't releases anything yet! But it's not like they are debutants. Maxime Picquart and Laurent Boile met when Goodbye Meteor needed a drummer and now they've survived the meteor saying goodbye and are ready to show the world their new music. Or almost ready. Why Goodbye Meteor had to break up? How is being in a band like being in relationship? And why is French linguistic law bad for post-rock artists?

The French duo said that the post-rock society is the kindest in the music world and it certainly was true about them as well. I had real nice talk with the two. Let's go!

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ŁŚ: You’ve been invited to the 5NDREAS festival. I’m not surprised, Andreas always says he loves Goodbye Meteor’s music.

Laurent Boile: In fact, he asked us if Goodbye Meteor could play. Like one last gig. I told him that unfortunately it was impossible, we were definitely over. But also that Maxime and I had new music. 

Maxime Picquart: It was a year ago and it was the real beginning for our new project. 

LB: We had to find a name, we had to make pictures, set up social networks. We’d started some things before that, but it was just music. At first, we said to ourselves: “We have time, maybe we’ll release something in five years or so”. But because of him, we had to take everything more seriously. 

MP: It will be our first ever concert as One Last Moment. Exclusively at Andreas’ festival.

ŁŚ: And now you are the most mysterious artist on the lineup. Nobody knows what to expect! Are you still working on the material?

MP: We have around one hour of music already written and at the moment, we are arranging all the instruments.

LB: It’s quite different right now. In Goodbye Meteor, we made the songs all together, four people in a rehearsal room. Me and Maxime, we think that it’s now easier to control the project, to write the songs, and to have other guys on stage to make music with us eventually. So now we make music together, we record, we arrange, we mix, we produce, and when the final product is quite finished, we will invite other people to play with us.

ŁŚ: Are you planning to expand the band after you have the material?

LB: No, just for the shows. We have them chosen already, but we haven't practiced together yet. In a few weeks, we are going to have a rehearsal session for five days.

MP: In the future, we may consider expanding the band, but for now, it will be only the two of us. Like Oh Hiroshima, there are just two of them in the band [Jakob Hemström and Oskar Nilsson - author’s note], but it’s four or five people on stage playing live.

LB: Yeah, and we work more efficiently in this way too.

Oh Hiroshima, indeed only two people

ŁŚ: I've never been in a band and I've never created any music really. So it is always interesting to me, how the mechanisms between people in a band work while creating music. When there were four of you, it had to be more complicated, right? But also, a lot of ideas can evolve into more interesting results. How is it with you?

MP: Making music as One Last Moment was not easy at first, because I was not used to being the only melodic instrument in a band. I had always played in bands with at least one other guitarist and a bassist. So it took me a few weeks to understand how to build and structure a track without them.

LB: I think it's still fairly easy for us, since we have known each other for seven years now. I think we have a connection. It often  works in the same way: Maxime starts with a guitar riff and I immediately know what he wants. To be honest, we need only a meeting or two to create the structure of a song. We’ve rehearsed less than ten times and we’ve already got a full hour’s worth of music, because afterwards we work on the arrangements on our own.

MP: We have a real connection. We talk to each other and we know that we can say everything we want and that we will be treated in a respectful way. Laurent is a really understanding person and it's really easy to work with him.

LB: And I have a chance to play with the best guitarist in the world. For me, Maxime is the best.

ŁŚ: Maxime, is Laurent the best drummer in the world?

(both laugh)

LB: Of course, he's not the best guitarist in the world. I'm not the best drummer in the world, but for us, it really feels that way. It’s like when you are in a relationship, maybe the other person is not the most beautiful person in the world, objectively speaking, but for you, they're the best one.

ŁŚ: So you are saying that being in a band is like being in a relationship.

MP: Yeah, definitely. And I think that it's why Goodbye Meteor came to an end. We weren't made for each other. When we eventually split, we were quite sad about that.

LB: And it took some time for us to get back on our feet and start something new. But we play music that we love to play. It's the music we love to listen to. It’s the music we feel most comfortable when it comes to writing.

MP: That is our kind of music. We have both been musicians for many years and have played in various bands, making various styles of music. But post-rock is the genre that feels like we were made for. All the feelings, all the emotions. And it is the kind of music I listen to at home now. I discovered post-rock when we started Goodbye Meteor, only then. Before that, I had only seen God Is an Astronaut and Sigur Rós live, but it was ages ago, and I did not listen to this kind of music back then. But now, it is definitely the music I need to listen to and to make. 

Sigur Rós playing in Lyon in 2013, perhaps Maxime was somewhere there in the audience?

ŁŚ: So you came from outside of this post-rock world and now you consider it yours?

MP: That's it. Sometimes, and it’s not only about music, it’s also true in different contexts, sometimes you need some time to get to know yourself and understand who you really are as a person. It's what happened to me with post-rock. It was like a discovery. A revelation.

LB: I discovered post-rock without knowing it was post-rock. Sigur Rós, I Like Trains, bands like those. But I didn’t know there was a post-rock scene, that there were post-rock festivals. I just loved to listen to that kind of music. And when Maxim called, I didn't know him at all at that point, and said they needed a drummer for Goodbye Meteor, I said I didn’t have time. I had a lot of work back then. But still, I asked what kind of band they were starting. Was it a funk band? Was it a metal band? Reggae? If it was anything like that, I would say no. But it was post-rock, it sounded like I Like Trains. Amazing.

ŁŚ: Laurent, in Goodbye Meteor, you played only drums, right? But it will change now…?

LB: You will see at the festival! In fact, we are working now on some arrangements. It's not just one guitar, one drum set anymore. There are keyboards, there are other things. I will have an electronic pad to launch some sounds.

ŁŚ: For people who know and love Goodbye Meteor, is One Last Moment's music going to be very different, or is it going to be more like a continuation of this sound?

LB: No, it's a continuation. With some things new, like the keyboard, for example, but the guitar sound will be the same because you can’t change your sound. I think people who love Goodbye Meteor will love the new band as well.

ŁŚ: And when can we have a taste of your music? So far, there is only a short teaser video online. Nothing else. Do you have a timeline for the project? 

LB: When we started, there was no deadline. We wanted to take all the time we needed. And now there's Andreas. And Andreas changes things because we know we have to be ready to exist in November. We will try to release a single in the next few weeks.

MP: Just before the festival.

LB. We will TRY. 

ŁŚ: So for now, 5NDREAS is the only chance to see you and to listen to One Last Moment?

LB: Exactly. 

ŁŚ: You described Goodbye Meteor as “green post-rock”, music about the connection between human and nature, the balance between those. Do you have any kind of theme for One Last Moment as well already?

LB: It's red post-rock now (laughs).

MP: With One Last Moment, it is not exactly the same, but it is connected to nature as well. We will be talking about natural disasters on our first album. 

ŁŚ: So now I have to ask if “one last moment” is a commentary on the situation humankind is facing right now?

MP: It can be taken in multiple ways. And that's why we have chosen this name.

LB: Yes, it should feel nostalgic. It's the last moment before something, perhaps before starting something new?

MP: And the thing is that when we were trying to find the perfect name, we were thinking about it separately. And somehow we still found the same two words we wanted to use. “Last” and “moment”. Only when we met again we added the third missing word. “One”.

ŁŚ: That’s amazing!

LB: Yeah, and it also can be taken as an abbreviation of sorts. The L in Last is like the L in Laurent, the M in Moment is like the M in Maxime. 

ŁŚ: So now you need someone with a name starting with an O!

MP: An Oscar! (laughs)

One Oscar I can think of (photo by Syberia)

ŁŚ: At 5NDREAS, you will already play as a four-piece band, right?

MP: Four, yeah, four. Today we booked the two other musicians. One bassist and one guitarist. We would love to go on a tour after we release our debut. Hopefully with all the connections we made as Goodbye Meteor, it won’t be that difficult. 

ŁŚ: I think that when you get into the post-rock world, you find that it's not that big. So you actually know everyone after a second. A very close community of people.

LB: And very, very nice people too. I went to dunk!festival four or five times, but I have never seen a moment of tension. It's not that mentality. I went to Pelagic Fest two years ago and it was the same thing. And that’s also why we prefer to play in Belgium and Germany. In France it’s more difficult, because in France people don’t really listen to post-rock. Of course, there are bands, and there are people who listen to it, but when it’s instrumental, it can sometimes be a bit of a struggle… For example, I saw Explosions in the Sky in Belgium two years ago and I saw them in Paris as well a few days later. In Belgium, they played two gigs a few days apart on a big stage, and in Paris… I’m not sure it was a full house.

In France, it can be complicated if there are no lyrics in music. Lyrics are very important. Because in France in radio stations, there are quotas for Chanson Francaise. I don’t know the precise number [it's a minimum of 40% of songs with lyrics in French for a standard radio station - author’s note]. And when I contacted some small radio stations in France, showing them Goodbye Meteor’s music, they said: “Oh, good, but it's too long. Can you make a radio edit?”. Well, of course it’s long. For a radio, over 3 minutes is very long. But in post-rock 3 minutes is just the intro. In other countries, like the US, Australia or China, there are some radio stations that broadcast us. They never say it's too long. In France, it's quite difficult.

MP: Yeah, that’s why sometimes we think we need to find the right place to meet our audience 

LB: Another example: we played at a festival close to where we live once. And it's a festival I have known for years. I’d played there with other bands playing reggae and pop, because I know the guy who organizes it. When it was the start of Goodbye Meteor, I told him: “I have a new band. It's a very good project. I'm sure it will be very good for this festival.” He agreed, but when he finally listened to our music, just before the event, he sent me a message: “There are no lyrics, there is no singer, it's instrumental! I'm not sure the people will understand.” And on stage, before we started the gig, this guy came on the stage, took the microphone and said, “I present to you Goodbye Meteor. It's a really nice band. There are no lyrics, but it's still a nice band”.

ŁŚ: I’m pretty sure Andreas won’t say anything like that in November!🦢

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One Last Moment will perform at the 5NDREAS Festival on Friday 27.11.

Save your ticket now (limited availability): https://rausgegangen.de/events/5ndreas-postrock-festival-0/

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ŁŚ Magazine before 5NDREAS: Civil Service (UK)

On the last weekend of November in the city of Munich, a special event will take place. Andreas, very well known within the post-rock community persona, will hold his birthday party, and it will be a special two days-long, 12 bands-rich indoor music festival 5NDREAS. My blog became its official media partner and my task is to fill in the remaining 6 weeks of wait with something interesting. And what could be more interesting than reading about the bands that are about to play on the stage at Feierwerk Kranhalle in Munich? Yeah? Let's start.

They released their third (or second as they, against the whole world, claim) album Dark /// last autumn and almost exactly one year later, Civil Service will present it to the (mainland) European fans for the first time in Munich. Why is it so different than /// Light? How were they inspired by both Hope of the States, Future of the Left and Gustavo Santaolalla? And what happens if people don't stand for what they believe in?

The British lads turned to be extremely nice guys with tons of things to say (also in Polish weirdly!) and it was an absolute pleasure to start this project in their company. Let's go!

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ŁŚ: Civil service means the organization which runs the administration of a state as it is defined by dictionaries, but it also evokes some kind of mission towards people, towards other citizens. Does your name mean that you, as a band, feel some kind of responsibility towards listeners, towards other people with your music? If so, what is this mission?

Francis Atkinson: Yeah, so it's a name where we all hated every other name. Our old bassist, James [Wilkes - author’s note] had a list of names. We went through a few, I think Glimmer for a bit before we released anything. Civil Service is one that we all kind of liked. I think it was a reference kind of to the song I Am Civil Service by the UK punk band Future of the Left. But yeah, it's come to us to mean having some sort of responsibility. Being the servants of our fans, the servants of the public, the servants of others. We try and help other bands, try and help other people, we try and help charities and stuff. It was an accident, but the name has come to mean something about who we are. We all kind of still think it's a bit rubbish, but we're 10 years in now, so...

ŁŚ: It reminds me of Public Service Broadcasting as well.

FA: They're great, I was at their big show in London two days ago. They did The Race for Space. It was incredible.

AC: We almost played a show with them. The promoter was in some ways eager because they were looking for an act, but asked if we could be more acoustic poetic instead of post-rock. And we were like: that's the weirdest thing we've ever been asked.

ŁŚ: It would look weird on a poster too. 

AC: You could do one of those crossword style, like they just take the Civil from us and the Public and Broadcasting from them.

How the poster could look like (probably not) - author's note

ŁŚ: Your first album was called Life /// Death. The previous one was called /// Light and now you released the Dark /// album, I'm seeing that you are very much inspired by juxtaposing some very different things together.

FA: Yeah, I think as a post rock band we can be a bit all over the place. And sometimes we write some songs that are very much kind of dark, more sort of like the GY!BE side of things. And then sometimes we write some songs that are really quite bouncy, lots of synthesizers, more sort of, I don't know, Maybeshewill, perhaps. We like to live within the contradiction.

AC: [While recording Life /// Death - author’s note] We've got a song about the start of life. Got a song about death and then James kind of threw some song titles around and we instantly went: well, two of them really fit because one of them's about your work life in Monozukuri and then another one was Lost in This Forest, a thick and confusing song about adolescence. And we realized that this album kind of just speaks to the big stages of your life, so why don't we make that kind of the theme of the record? And then it kind of coincided, positively and negatively, that I had my first son just as we were releasing the album, which kind of fit the life section. And then Fran and I had some lost family as we were recording it as well. So it kind of felt like it all came together at the right time. It meant something, still means something.

When we started to write new stuff or whilst we were in the process of it, we had all these kinds of big post-rock themes that were a bit disparate. And then when we started drilling down into it, we decided we could just make an album that's about the positive side of what we're doing and then one that's the darker side of it. They're supposed to be like two parts of the same story, those two records. And if you listen to them together or if you listen to them separately, you're still getting kind of the overall message that there's good bits and bad bits and you've got to find the balance to keep yourself sane and happy and pushing forward.

ŁŚ: But you agree that this is not only a title, right?

FA: Yeah, it's quite literal. It tells you what it should sound like: /// Light is lighter, Dark /// is darker. But they were all written in similar time, maybe across two years.

AC: And recorded by the same person in the same room. Same musicians, same instruments, like nothing really changed between recording /// Light and Dark ///. Originally we wanted to record them at the same time together, but we found out that would be very expensive. I think we made the right decision.

After /// Light, we've played a few more shows, but we haven't really had a breakout moment. And then it just felt like a couple of the songs people have really taken to and a couple of guests really made the songs work. We remain just immensely grateful to anyone who's pitched in for anything, but it felt particularly gratifying when Luke [Daly - author’s note] from Overhead the Albatross joined us to open Dark ///. People were listening to our record going: “so there is a new Overhead the Albatross album out?” And Luke told us afterwards that that's the first time he's ever sung with anyone else other than OtA for 15 years. And he'd never done it live before ArcTanGent a couple of weeks ago. That's the first time he'd ever sung with another band, which is hugely honouring. 

ŁŚ: I would say that Dark ///, except for the obvious fact that this is sort of darker in tone, it is also kind of maybe more complex musically. Do you have also this feeling?I feel it especially in my favourite track here, Black Giraffes. It also involves some strings and you don't play violins, do you?

AC: When it comes to Black Giraffes, I think you're going to get a kick out of this more than most people. The origin of the song is that I was playing around with a riff and then I was kind of musing on The Last of Us main theme tune by Gustavo Santaolalla. And as I was playing it, I was like, this pattern's really similar to something but I couldn't work out what it was. And then I turned to James, and I went, is this Hope of the States?

It's the same, it's the same pattern. It's the same notes. It's just like different ascending and descending parts. The song was always going to be about Ukraine. We'd just been over there, all five of the original recording members, in 2019. So before /// Light had been written, and we started working up this new song as the invasion was happening. So we wanted to find themes that would connect and obviously The Last of Us being kind of post-apocalyptic felt perfect. The Black Amnesias [a track from the debut album by Hope of the States - author’s note] for me has always felt like a post-apocalyptic opening to a record so it kind of felt like two things hand in glove.

And then because I loved Mike Siddel's violin playing on that so much, I was like: “There's got to be some strings at some point on it” and we tried to get him and almost did.

ŁŚ: [being a Hope of the States fanboy] My God, that would be so perfect.

AC: But I said: you know what, we can't just let the dream die there. So I just approached some people that were offering online services and they ended up recording a bit like a string quartet on Black Giraffes, on Every Beam of Light is an Invitation to Death, and a little bit on An Infant Wave in a Savage Ocean as well. Honestly, if we had more time before we put the record out, we probably would have got them to do maybe every song, because I think they did such a great job and it's something that I think we know really adds to the sound.

FA: On the complexity front, I think Thom takes the credit here. We tend to write, me and Alex will write stuff, and it tends to be very boring. And then Thom will shout at us that we have to do something interesting rhythmically. And I think he brings a lot of that. Because post-rock can often just be playing the same thing, but a bit louder.

Thom Hamper: And with Dark ///, I think the way we wrote the songs, it just created more space for more instruments, which with /// Light, there's already a lot of that taken up by synths. And I think we thought, well, as much as we love our synth, let's see if there's something else that we can fit that moment better with. And I suspect that's how a lot of it came about as well.

AC: I think doing the process slightly differently helped redefine the songs. The synths really come to the fore in /// Light so much because it is supposed to feel like an ethereal record with rising, soaring moments. And Dark /// was always supposed to have moments of pause, of making you listen for something that's maybe not there and then suddenly you hit with something that you're not expecting.

TH: Within /// Light, there's not a lot of space. And then in recording that, we could hear a lot of the implied melody of bits that we maybe could have done with a bit more time. So then when it came to Dark ///, I think we recognized where those spaces were and were like: well, if we can hear it, let's fill it. I think that came about quite organically and unconsciously, really.

FA: Yeah, we learned a lot recording. When we worked with Dave [Sanderson, on /// Light - author’s note], it was the first time we had been produced and you know he was giving feedback and he was giving ideas and he was pushing and prodding us.

AC: We approached Dave because he'd done like four of 65daysofstatic's best records. So if he turned 65daysofstatic into like the band they went on to be then he's going to be able to take us to a level that we couldn't do ourselves.

And I still have moments where I'll hear something that Dave's done, either for 65daysofstatic or for us or some of the other projects he's worked on and you just hear little bits that are like Dave, that's just him. And whenever I have those moments when listening to 65daysofstatic I say: holy hell, that sounds like us! But it doesn't sound like us. We sound like them, but everything sounds like Dave.

ŁŚ: Coming back to Black Giraffes, you already said it is about the Russian invasion on Ukraine. There are some voice samples with a girl speaking Ukrainian.

AC: So we sponsor a Ukrainian humanitarian aid worker called Glynn. He's a chap from Hull in the UK, which is a very desolate, rundown part of the country. I'm sure they won't mind me saying. And he retired after working his entire life and decided to spend the last four or five years going over to Ukraine, driving ambulances and delivering food and aid and power banks and whatever they need.

I asked him to take his phone and just ask the question: why did you stay in Ukraine? Why haven't you left? Why do you continue to fight for your country? And we got, I think it's about 12 or 13 samples from people kind of all over the eastern side of Ukraine. And they're all the quotes already harrowing and kind of meaningful. So for our live shows, we project the lyrics to the song, but we project them in English as they're being spoken in Ukrainian. 

ŁŚ: So I guess it brings us to the remixes album that is being released this November. Darker is made in support of Ukrainian humanitarian aid. You’ve already answered why you decided to do it this way, but tell me why now? It’s almost five years since the beginning of full scale invasion.

FA: Before we weren't really popular, it wouldn’t have had any impact, maybe made any sales. It's also taken us time to gather people to work with us. 

AC: Like specifically on the timing, I think I really wanted to release this now to kind of make that point that we appreciate loads of other causes that are going on in the world right now, but it seems even madder to me now than it did five years ago that there is still a conflict right on our doorstep. And it's crazy that like we're doing it to prove a point that you can't let these things just slip to the back of your mind. Because it's not okay that it's still a problem. Ultimately, if people aren't shouting about it, about the things they believe in, then people just get used to it and it becomes the norm.

FA: There can be an assumption that Ukraine are just holding them to a standstill and that's fine and it can just carry on, but in the meantime, people in Ukraine are suffering and it could all collapse in a month if people stop sending aid, if governments stop supporting. So we're doing our little bit. I don't think there's ever a wrong time to support something you believe in.

ŁS: I'm very glad that this is your view on this matter, because I understand that for a person in Great Britain this actually can be a distant problem, while for me, you know, I could get into a car and in three hours I would be in Ukraine.

TH: We’re still all Europeans, whether people in this country think so or not.

FA: Yeah, we're very proud Europeans.

AC: The ultimate dream when writing that song was to someday perform it in Ukraine. And like it seems completely impossible right now, but hopefully things change.

At this point, I'd love to give a shout out to some of the people on Darker because obviously they have given so generously their time and their talent, sometimes not necessarily knowing us as people

Eugenie hosts Lviv Wave Radio and she's going to be contributing something to the record, which again, for someone who's living the experience of being in Ukraine right now, trying to keep spirits up, trying to kind of battle against propaganda from other sides, trying to keep that message strong. It's amazing that she's contributing to something and playing the songs over there as well, which is amazing.

And Robin Southby from Maybeshewill, I mean, Maybeshewill are far too big a band to have anything to do with us. He messaged us on the internet and he followed us rather than us following him, which was weird. And then I messaged him: you know, our band loves your band. If you're ever near any of our shows, you’re invited. I thought that he'd never pick us up on that, but he came to the next show that we played.

That's been the real lesson for Darker as a project: if you don't ask, you're definitely getting nothing. Whereas if you ask, the worst, honestly, the worst thing that happens is you never hear anything. I won't name the band because, you know, who knows if they'd want to talk about it or not. But we had a band who we invited to be part of the project who said, we just try, you know, our absolute best not to be involved in any kind of political causes.

ŁŚ: Was that Ed Sheeran?

(all laugh)

AC: Like with everything else, we know what the problem is politically motivated by a smaller group than an entire nation. We had the pleasure of playing with a couple of Russian bands over in China and they were honestly so lovely and they were as devastated as everyone else because they'd been doing European tours and then suddenly it's all gone.

FA: The Iron Curtain comes down again.

AC: [On Darker - author’s note] there's a few bands that I think we've not even kind of mentioned publicly who are going to be on the record, but if you know who we are, then I suppose they become pretty easy to guess.

ŁŚ: In November, you will play in Munich at 5NDREAS festival. What can the audience expect from your show at the festival? Songs from Dark /// or some older ones?

FA: It's going to be a nice mixture. And probably something new. We're still writing it. We're going to go and rehearse it after this interview. We may have a fight. It may get scrapped. It may be our new favorite song. We'll let you know, but we hope to play a new song.

AC: So we asked Andreas to pick the set list. It's your birthday, tell us what you want to play. He's seen us before, he's always commented, oh, I wish you'd played this song or I wish you'd played that song. So we wanted to give him the chance. But I think it's also probably fair to say that we're planning to play the two songs that we've debuted on his channel. So Black Giraffes and Their Lines of Communication, Severed. 

FA: We're not playing Turn Out the /// Light because Andreas doesn't like the screaming.

(That's not true! I love Turn Out the /// Light! - Andreas' note)

AC: We'll keep it within the post-rock realms for sure. 🦢

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Civil Service will perform at the 5NDREAS Festival on Saturday 28.11.

Save your ticket now (limited availability): https://rausgegangen.de/events/5ndreas-postrock-festival-0/

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David Cordero & Aiko Takahashi - Night’s End (2026)

I can hardly believe that this is only the first time I post about David Cordero's music. His impressive ambient career goes for almost 15 years now and the album that finally brought him here is a collaboration with the visual designer and composer Aiko Takahashi that fills the room with calm and beautiful neoclassical ambient.

Takahashi is known for her contemplating and silence-exploring works (both sonic and visual) which makes her a perfect match for Cordero's music. The results of the cooperation are the calmest of soundscapes that bring peace and balance to everyone tired of the overstimulated reality around. The silence in which singular notes appear and into which they immediately melt again covers the audience with a blanket of this positive stillness that moves you anyway with its sheer beauty. 

Night’s End costs 5 EUR.

Check: Nullarbor Plain

Country: Spain

Genre: neoclassical soundscape

Label: Home Normal

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seventh cloud - tulsa, ok (2026)

The "rock n roll from ft wayne" is the least rock'n;rolly rock'n'roll I know. But that's why I like it. The Indiana-based band released their third EP (no LP yet!) and it's a small collection of moody lo-fi tunes that balance somewhere between noise pop and ambient pop, like drone music for ethereal music lovers.

I discovered seventh cloud after they released a fantastic split album with Velvet, but this is my first time with them tête-à-tête. What strikes you the most at first is how much vocals and lyrics-oriented this music is. In some places it sounds like sung poetry with noisy backgrounds. It makes the whole thing very lyrical with these artsy vibes that the band tries to water down with the garage-sounding lo-fi guitar noise and I dig it so much. Especially steady that, I have to say, reminds me of one of the best Polish dreamy songs from Rosa Vertov's repertoire. 

And this lyrical and dreamy state lasts until fixer where the emotional screams broaden the already pretty vast genre horizon for this release. I like the garage-like atmosphere that fills it to the brim, especially when balanced by the dreamy parts.

tulsa, ok costs 9 USD.

Check: steady

Country: Indiana, US

Genre: garage dream pop

Label: kevin records

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Dorena - Kvar (2026)

Another post-rock band from Sweden this week and another comeback. This time, it's after an impressive (kinda) 13 years of hiatus! Dorena are coming back and their cheerful, carefree instrumental music sounds better than ever, especially now when the longing for the summer is still not that painful, but already clearly here. The Swedes bring us this feeling in the form of well-designed guitar compositions that never get too loud.

There is no coincidence that Kvar was released by Deep Elm Records, the label I know mostly from Lights and Motion's albums. It's a similar kind of post-rock that doesn't aim at overdramatisation and gloominess, instead, they propose their colorful and light-weight take on guitar compositions. The cover art that seems to be someone's childhood photo with the atmosphere of late summer, together with some track titles such as Tree Climber reflect the music here perfectly. This non-invasive melancholia of early September and sad lo-fi vocals go together so well! But that's not all: the guitar melodies are cute and catchy, but when the artists want, they can put up a show of dense guitar (and not only!) atmosphere as in Mykorrhiza and I love it.

The album is meant to stress the fact that humans all over the world, despite everything, have still more in common than what sets them apart. It's probably best visible in the title of the last track as LUCA stands for "last universal common ancestor", the hypthetical last common ancestor of all living creatures. Yes, one common ancestor surely brings all humans closer, but so does the universally beautiful music the Swedes create.

Kvar costs 7.99 USD.

Check: Tree Climber

Country: Sweden

Genre: carefree post-rock

Label: Deep Elm Records

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Star of Heaven - Kyrie (2026)

Sweden seems to have an infinite reservoir of atmospheric and ethereal-sounding post-rock artists from A Swarm of the Sun and ef to smaller, lesser-known bands who still have so much to offer. Sometimes even more. One of the latter is the Stockholm-based Star of Heaven with whom I was lucky enough to run an interview very recently. Before the interview features on the blog, let's take a look at their new album.

And the fans had to wait for this one for a long time. Three years after the release of the previous one, 2020's To Our Memories, the post-rock orchestra from Sweden released new material played live but only now after another three years, it's been completed and polished enough to be released "in a proper way". And so Kyrie, an album with the most original... origins have been created. The band says it's been inspired by one composition, Kyrie, taken out from Mozart's Mass in C-minor. But it's more than just inspiration. The artists took the several minutes-long track and slowed it down so it lasted way over an hour. And THIS was the blueprint for the whole album, a plan for the band's own compositions. That IS so clever!

The music here is certainly one of the most atmospheric and cinematic pieces in post-rock this year. It's MONO with less noise but more space and melancholia. It's MONO I'd like to hear on their last album instead of what they released on Gerbera. The compositions here are meant to evoke various emotions and bring various situations to your mind, but as they are not titled, it's one's very own interpretations that is required. In this way, I feel like it's safe to say that the Swedes make music for a movie score to a movie that's entirely in your head. Star of Heaven will play at 5NDREAS festival in November in Munich but more about that in a separate entry with the aforementioned interview very, very soon!

Kyrie costs 6.5 EUR (72 SEK).

Check: Kyrie VII

Country: Sweden

Genre: orchestral post-rock

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Schröttersburg - Ignis (2026)

A Polish band with a long history, but one I'd never really listened to. It finally changed with Schröttersburg's 7th album, released only a month ago Ignis. Everyone sayd it's post-industrial and post-punky and while this may be true, I'm at this party for the hypnotizing psychedelia of the longer tracks.

Yes, it is dark, yes, the track titles translate to some macabre images (like the Midsommar-esque Szubienice z kwiatów or "Gallows made of flowers"), but to me the Płock-based band is the best when they focus on creating the trance-inducing sections of the ongoing sonic repetitions and short (yes, usually disturibing) phrases shouted over and over again until they drown in the guitar noise eventually. Sorta like 10 000 Russos or other Las Cobras. The emotionless and slightly withdrawn vocals make this impression even more significant and I dig it. This is further enforced when you learn that the title's fire is viewed at the album as " a form of transformation, or spiritual energy" which explains the trance properties.

Of course, I wouldn't be myself if I didn't hear some post-rock in these compositions, especially in the monumental Jaźń, but it's not the clue here. The clue is that I'd love to be a part of the mesmerized audience at Schröttersburg's show right now when I listen to the album. 

Ignis costs 9 EUR.

Check: Jaźń

Country: Poland

Genre: psychedelic post-industrial

Label: Zoharum, DIY Koło, Hidden Beauty, Bat-Cave Production, Esion Records

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hiacynt - bezkres (2026)

There is a number of bands in Poland who say they play shoegaze but very few that actually do that. So I was very happy to discover a band that was under my radar for a couple of years and that is clearly an example of the latter. Hiacynt in Polish means, no surprises here, a hyacinth a flower the ethereal nature of which certainly may be a paralel for the music of the trio. 

So it happens that it is also the 2nd this week band that quotes Nothing as one of their influences and I can only support that. So far, there are two very short EPs released, last year's światło II and bezkres released a month ago. Both very much worth checking out. While not shying away from writing sweet melodies, the artists seem to focus mostly on creating dense and mysterious atmosphere with guitar effects and slightly lo-fi format. It's no surprise that the title of this EP can be translated as "limitlessness". The dreaminess and melancholia of the vast horizons is what comes to mind when drowning in Hiacynt's music.

I saw the band performing live in Kraków the other day and it sounds very well live too, which is not always easy to accomplish for noisy poppers. And from what I understand, the musicians are also a prime example of what not giving up can give you. Maybe not a success quite yet, but surely a handful of great songs. Good start!

bezkres costs 2.5 EUR (10 PLN).

Check: bezkres

Country: Poland

Genre: lo-fi nugaze

Label: MuseUp Polska

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Silk - Auralux (2026)

There is no shortage of new exciting shoegaze in Europe, but I am going to welcome any debutants anyway, especially if they sound like the Irish project. Silk released their first ever (mini)album in May, but it got to my hands only now and I didn't hesitate to count it among the best noisy and dreamy releases of the year.

I don't quite know what to make of it as the label states that this is a solo project while all the visuals show a whole band. And frankly, the depth and the volume of the music, to me clearly indicate multiple people involved. Anyhow. The man behind it is Michael Smyth (ex Virgins) regardless and you can clearly hear that he is no real debutante. If you can almost touch the noise, it means this is a good nugaze. No wonder the band members in the picture show their love for Nothing (and yes, they also supported the iconic Americans). 

The sound you can touch as clearly as a wall you hit with your head is one thing, but obviously there is the counterbalance in the form of the dreamy vocals and sweet melodies that are as catchy as they are hypnotic. Clementine, Slide Away or my favourite track here, Pleasures are really not far from the best shoegaze songs from the old masters, but they also feel fresh, just like nugaze intended.

Auralux costs 3.5 EUR (3 GBP).

Check: Pleasures 

Country: Ireland

Genre: nugaze

Label: Blowtorch Records/Shore Dive Records

Band photo by Alyssa Duff

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