2022 Shoegaze

DAVID GRANSTRÖM, Empty Room - LP

Release date - April 2th 2021
Catalogue nr. - HG2102
Format - Vinyl / digital
Hallow Ground

hallowground.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:
1) Obsidian 09:22
2) Aeon 10:56
3) Sapphire Visions 04:50
4) Occultations 10:08
5) Transience 04:45

Credits:
All tracks composed, recorded, performed and mixed by David Granström 
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
Photography by Aron Mattsson
Cover design by Greenpointless

///
On »Empty Room,« David Granström works with slow transformations, cyclical and isometric patterns as well as just intonation as a way to create harmonic stability, allowing his long-form pieces to develop their own unique temporal and spatial qualities. A prolific figure in Stockholm’s experimental drone scene and a collaborator of Hallow Ground label mates Maria W Horn and Mats Erlandsson, the Swedish composer navigates through moments of quietude and crushing volume on these five tracks. Sonically and atmospherically, the pieces on »Empty Room« simultaneously call to mind Fennesz’s most meditative work or the physical experience of seeing Sunn O))) live, blending guitar recordings and synthesised sounds with forceful effects similar to those of Mario Díaz de Leon’s Oneirogen project while still being as moving and delicate as Alessandro Cortini’s solo work. The album is marked by melodies and harmonies that are the product of a peculiar working process that turned the composer into an intent listener collaborating with, rather than simply using technology. 

Having been invited by the self-organising artist group The Non Existent Center for a residency to Ställbergs Gruva, a defunct iron ore mine in Sweden’s Bergslagen region, Granström took his guitar as a starting point for his compositional work that heavily relies on real-time sound synthesis. »I seldomly use the instrument as a sound source in the final compositions and rather transcribe and orchestrate the harmonic structures using sound synthesis,« he explains. »On this album however, I chose to include the actual recordings of the guitar in order to extend the spectra between non-referential synthetic sounds and embodied referential sounds.« Working with precise tunings in order to blend the timbre of the synthesis with the harmonic structures of the composition, he created composite sound objects in which the harmonic elements blend into each other. 

Through the re-amplification of synthetic musical materials from the inside of the abandoned mine, his original compositions were enriched with site-specific sound qualities before he further refined them in a singular working process. Granström works with algorithmic and generative processes, using the SuperCollider programming environment and thus blurring the lines between generative and creative forms of composition. »One of the things that I like about this way of working is that it creates a distance between myself as a composer and myself as a listener of the music that is produced entirely by the system,« he says. Granström’s technologically aided eschewing of the conventions of composing doesn’t make the end result any less personal, however. By listening again and again to the newly generated output, Granström simply took on a different role in the process of finalising the music, with the technology and the sounds becoming his co-authors. 

By creating systems that generate music, he gains a new perspective on (musical) time, says Granström. »There doesn't have to be a fixed length to the music at all,« he explains. »And by writing music with this in mind, my focus tends to shift towards writing cyclical structures that gradually change and transform over time.« Simple parts, in other words, that emerge as the five complex wholes that form »Empty Room,« a record that itself seems to take on different forms with every new listen.

DAVID GRANSTRÖM - Occultations (HG2102)

https://songwhip.com/bloodestate/floodgate

Floodgate

floodgate  new album on spotify

ALL CREDIT GOES TO BEACH HOUSE I LOVE YOU BEACH HOUSE

Beach House - Runaway (Mathbonus Remix)

From the album The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong out April 29, 2022 on Western Vinyl.
Pre-order / Listen: https://lnk.to/XHoJYpp2

On their debut for Western Vinyl, recording engineer and multi-instrumentalist Nate Mendelsohn and his band use lyrical maximalism for the powers of good. Where Market’s previous home recorded releases shifted genre restlessly, on The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong Mendelsohn took a core band of longtime collaborators to a house in rural Massachusetts where they carved out space for his words to speak through with humor and intensity. 

Though he comes from a background in experimental music, Mendelsohn’s ear for pop has prevailed. Certain moments on Bullshit Gong reveal his stranger side, as on the thundering bridge of “Scar,” which sounds like a more unhinged Parquet Courts, or the angular  “I Would Do That,” which takes cues from Cate Le Bon. On the whole, though, this band of close friends insists on directness, their arrangements clear despite the intricacies. Guitars and synthesizers tangle fluidly atop the rhythm section’s tight bedrock, evoking the tenderness and backbeat-centric qualities of Elliott Smith or Big Thief. 

After college, where he met most of the members of Market, Mendelsohn became an engineer and producer at the Brooklyn studio Figure 8 Recording. Through that community he’s recorded artists like Frankie Cosmos and Wendy Eisenberg, and played with Yaeji, Vagabon, Katie Von Schleicher (who co-produced Bullshit Gong with him), and Sam Evian, who mixed the album. 

While writing Bullshit Gong, Mendelsohn grappled with long-gestating OCD, watched a formative relationship dissolve, and experienced a mental health crisis that lasted a full year. During this turbulent time, Mendelsohn began to consider the ways he has approached friendship, partnership, and especially family. Those observations and partial conclusions make their way into the songs in an essential capacity, as he mixes the small with the very big on a dogged search for empathy. On “Control” he sings “I heard a kid ask a teacher today / ‘What is a memory?’ / Man, sometimes life is great / At 4:15 I was awake and a mess / My mind’s a broke machine.” 

The words flow in much the same way as Mendelsohn’s thoughts, with observation and memory giving way to moments of profound anxiety. This emotional heft is met in crucial ways by his band. On the tender “Watergate,” a love song set against both the Watergate scandal and James Comey’s senate testimony, the arrangement is simple and trusting, adding depth and intimacy to each word as he compares his life, love, and temperament to that of his parents. 

While recording “Old,” the band sat around an omnidirectional microphone shaking percussion instruments and singing out certain lines. In the background, you can hear Mendelsohn pick up his clarinet and eke out a few notes, a spontaneous act of playfulness that made the final cut. These tonal shifts matter deeply, as the words he sings could be interpreted differently in a darker setting: “Half of these feelings aren’t my feelings anymore / But I guess I could still enjoy the notes and chords / Maybe that’s just the way it goes / We always sing about things that are old.”

Creating intimacy out of manic self-reflection requires a delicate balancing act, one Mendelsohn tackles with abandon. His words never skew too poetic or grandiose, and when he invokes the ugly it’s met with a sonic tonality that sets him right again. In tender moments, his voice is often flanked by bandmates Natasha Thweatt or Von Schleicher, who help skew his words toward the universal. Still, Bullshit Gong is an obsessive look inward, one in which Mendelsohn simply asks himself if he is good to those he loves. It’s an act of trust between the artist and the imagined listener he takes with him.

The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong

Market - "Scar"

From the album "Saudade" out February 11th!

Tangerine Dayglo

EEP
http://eepshoegaze.bandcamp.com

Letting Up Despite Great Faults
http://linktr.ee/lettingup

She Spins (EEP Remix)

New single by Pit Pony
Available on limited 7" vinyl = https://pitponyband.bandcamp.com/

Follow PIT PONY:
Bandcamp: https://pitponyband.bandcamp.com/
Instagram: instagram.com/pitponyband
Twitter: twitter.com/pitponyband
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pitponyband

Accidental Doom / Fuzzy

Fuzzy

Pit Pony -  Fuzzy

Moment saxofone by Peneira Pôr do Som

14:03:2024, 14.51
literally recorded some harmonies over a voice note from the other day - but i rlly like my voice in this…

been looking up at the stars a lot lately

jupiter - matt maltese cover

Waiting for the End to Come

The Grief Of

Too Relaxed

I do not own this song. It belongs to Loathe.  Track #9 on their album “I Let It In And It Took Everything.”

Loathe - Is It Really You?

💘 indie/dreampop 💘
www.lettingupdespitegreatfaults.com

Letting Up Despite Great Faults is an American indie dreampop band from Los Angeles, CA and Austin, TX. Making their mark with their acclaimed debut album (self-titled 2009) and Untogether (2012), they carved out a little corner of the dreampop world with their take on electronic shoegaze and indiepop jangle. After taking a hiatus which songwriter Mike Lee hails as their time to "become real adults," they came back to their familiar form with IV (2022). Gearing up for their next release, Reveries, we hear them push forward and further like never before, exploring new sounds and structure with a mature patience and confidence emblematic of "real adults." Now inspired by vastly different genres from drum 'n' bass to post-punk to K-pop, their version of dreampop has become larger and simultaneously very refined. Meticulously mixed by the amazing Melina Duterte (Jay Som), the new album Reveries yet again shows Lee wearing it all on his sleeve.

Touring U.S. in Spring 2025 and Asia in Summer 2025.

She Spins (EEP Remix)

Letting Up Despite Great Faults

Related tracks