GRAVE092 ::: Whirr 'Around'

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With their two albums to date, Bay Area six-piece Whirr have developed a reputation for dirgeful shoegaze, buttressed with textured layers or guitar and weighty, driving compositions. Spacious and moody, their 2012 LP Pipe Dream drew comparisons to heavyweights of the genre My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive.

Now, Whirr returns with Around, a mini-LP that finds the group restrained, but no less dark. Here, they explore longer songs, with their shortest clocking in at just under six minutes. Catchy melodies, traditionally a part of the band’s wheelhouse, give way here to a droning ambience, shifting Whirr slightly from their shoegaze core toward a dour post-rock sound. Vocalists Kristina Esfandiari and Loren Rivera keep their contributions misty and abstract, serving here as additional instruments more than messengers. But the thunderous drums and lavish guitar work remain — albeit in a colder, glassier form — making Around both a departure and a logical step forward from Whirr’s previous work.

LP: Record Club members receive black inside milky clear color in color vinyl. All RC copies hand-numbered. First retail pressing is heavy black splatter on milky clear vinyl (limited to 1350). Mail-order only variant is 180gram black vinyl (limited to 350 copies). LP jacket has swirl die cut. Full color thick inner sleeve. 
CD: The CD is packaged in an uncoated recycled sleeve. 
Cassette: The cassette comes with a full color j-card. 500 copies.

Whirr - Drain

http://fleetingjoys1.bandcamp.com/track/kiss-a-girl-in-black-single

Fleeting Joys - Kiss A Girl In Black

Computerwife

Melancholia

julie - daisy pusher

A Shoegaze renaissance classic, first time on vinyl.

The shoegaze renaissance classic The Millia Pink And Green EP by Sway has influenced many a modern musician, shoegazer and non-shoegazer alike. Now, Saint Marie Records gives it the long awaited vinyl treatment. The record now weighs a bit more, thanks to the bonus track ‘Channel’ and its 180gm Coke bottle green transparent vinyl.

Sway began making noise in 1999, in Ventura, California. At the time, they were a four-piece garage rock outfit consisting of Andrew Saks, Amber Carlson, Seth Eubanks, and Vince Alatorre, playing shows and confusing audiences up and down the West Coast with its blurry wall of sound. They’re most known for the shoegaze renaissance classic The Millia Pink And Green EP released in 2003.

Andrew’s songwriting and sonic ideals are deeply rooted in the music he was surrounded by while coming of age: late ‘70s and ‘80s pop music.  Falling asleep nightly while listening to 1980s pop and R&B, and then waking up late at night in a dark dreamlike haze with New Order, Swing Out Sister, Talking Heads, Pet Shop Boys, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam whispering through his Walkman’s headphones, the sonic memory of such experiences keep Sway from ever giving itself over fully to the traditional shoegaze elements. The quest to recreate these musical properties is what later led Sway to embrace and be further influenced by the blissful textures of dreampop visionaries such as The Cocteau Twins, Medicine, and My Bloody Valentine.

In 2011, This Was Tomorrow was released by Saint Marie Records.  It was Sway’s first full-length release and its last.

SIDE A
Fall
Sounds Like Everyone
Sullust

SIDE B
Ever and Ever
Opentillate
Channel (Bonus Track)

Sway - Opentillate

hurt

Bay Area post-shoegaze sextet, Whirr, generates expressive songs of cutting guitar textures backed by misty vocals. Their full length debut ‘Pipe Dreams’ dropped via TeePee Records on March 13th. ‘Distressor’ is a reissue of their debut EP, originally released in mid-2011 as a 500 copy vinyl only run in the UK.
Whirr's spirit rejuvenates the '90s shoegaze sound, providing a widescreen update for the post-millennial era. A wall of lush guitars, breathy vocals, dreamy synth and thunderous drumming send the listener to a picturesque realm. Instantly catchy melodies and emotional, enveloping atmospheres hang fully in balance. The sound of Whirr is a total crush when texture, volume, bright pop melodies and dense guitar noise fuse perfectly.
Twenty years after My Bloody Valentine awed music fans with the now-classic 'Loveless' LP, Whirr emerges with their own fluid surge of drones and reverberations. However, classifying them only as shoegaze diminishes their complexity. Guitarist, Nick Bassett, also plays in the celebrated post-black metal band, Deafheaven, whose latest release was named one of NPR’s Best Metal Albums of 2011. That influence infiltrates Whirr’s sound, producing an interwoven sound. The cd is packaged in a recycled gatefold sleeve and the retail vinyl color is black/white/grey splatter on clear.

Whirr - Ghost

slowdive so tired mixxxxy

LSD and the Search for God self-titled EP. 
Mind Expansion Records. CD out of print. 
Deep Space Recordings. Vinyl re-issue.
© 2006 LSD and the Search for God

starting over

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forgotten fossilized archaic - autumns grey solace

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Sway - Opentillate

Saint Marie Records

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