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Archive for January, 2006

Shoegaze

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

For the past few months I’ve been enjoying a personal shoegaze revival. I never actually stopped liking the genre but it had been a long time since I’d sought out any new practitioners. I happened upon the Clairecords label and explored some of their roster, including Airiel, Stella Luna, Sciflyer, Monster Movie, and Pia Fraus. They have an excellent sampler, Notes From Claire, that will only set you back $3.00 plus shipping.

I also searched around for a few “best of” shoegaze lists to see if I’d been missing out on anything. I found Ben’s Shoegazer Page, which cribs a definition of the style from AMG and lists descriptions for ten albums and artists. I was only familiar with half of them. There’s also this list of eleven albums with no descriptions. It’s written by some guy named Piero Scaruffi whose interesting bio says he is “famous as a critic and historian of rock music, on which he has been writing for over 20 years for over 30 magazines worldwide.” Who knew?

Both lists include Blind Mr. Jones’ Stereo Musicale (1992) so I downloaded it from eMusic last week. I’d never heard of that band before and really enjoyed the album. I don’t think it’d be disingenuous of me to describe them as Ride with a flute. That’s right, a flute. It actually works surprisingly well.

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Single(s) – eagle*seagull

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

eagle*seagull 3hive brought us three tracks last week from a band that normally would have slipped well under my radar and might have continued too if it were not for the comparisons to The Beatles, Queen, and Arcade Fire that peppered the comments. I also find myself at a loss to give an adequate description of eagle*seagull’s sound in that it does approximate the aforementioned as well as alludes to Bowie and Robert Smith of The Cure but is unique unto itself. For me, it took several listens of these three tracks before they slowly grew on me and I became comfortable with the sound the band is creating.

“Death Could Be At The Door” is a crisp waltz that does a good job of showcasing Eli Mardock’s vocal stylings which occasionally sound as if they are teetering on the edge of sobs and being swallowed by the left side of his mouth. Critics argue that the vocals in this track overpower the mix but without the benefit of hearing the song in context with the album I am hesitant to draw the same conclusion. However, the vocals are prominent and do afford the listener the best opportunity to become familiar with how Mardock interacts with the rest of the band.

“Photograph” changes pace, shifting in to a more straight ahead rocker with a solid downbeat anchored by a stark piano and bass line. The song possesses a deep and lush sound similar in feeling to Dove’s “Snowden” and does not deviate far from the shimmering wall of guitars.

The last track, “Your Beauty,” is where eagle*seagull demonstrate their capabilities as a band with the composition shifting through tempos and moods to create a dense and complex work. The track is also where many of the references to Queen and The Beatles can be heard. The song opens with a bouncy piano line and makes great use of sudden drops where the band appears to stumble off the arrangement only to swell back into the piece as if the conductor was late in turning the page.

If these three tracks are any benchmark for eagle*seagull’s self-titled album, released late last year, than this is a band to watch. I certainly will be looking to get my hands on a copy of the album as they have grabbed my attention with their imaginative arrangements. The album can be purchased directly from their label Paper Garden Records.

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50 Foot Wave – Free Music! EP

Monday, January 30th, 2006