I have decided to organize the discs chronologically, with only one song per artist per year, and I think I can have the first decade (1985-1994) finished by the end of the year. So far, I have identified over ninety bands—about half of which are from the U.K., but the U.S. is well represented with an interesting mix of bands who fall mostly into one of two camps: those mimicking the U.K. sound (e.g. Lilys – In the Presence of Nothing) or those who ‘gaze in a distinctively American style like Seam or The Ropers.

Anyone interested in having a rough idea of the progress I am making can check out the lists section of my Rate Your Music page to see how I am getting along.

Let’s see, do I go with “Bad” by U2, “I Have the Touch” by Peter Gabriel, “Our Lips Are Sealed” by Go-Go’s, “All That Matters Now” by Breathless…

Dave is also the subject of a short interview given to The Blog That Celebrates Itself. Don’t worry; the introductory paragraph is in Spanish, but the interview was conducted in English.

*A seventh volume – to benefit the animals affected by the disaster – is being added.

Link expired 12am PDT, Sunday, 01 May 2011

Vibrato 11.06
01. “Don’t Touch” by [aftersun] from Pain Sounds (©2011 [aftersun])
The solo project of Stephan Cherkashin (Telltale and Audn), [aftersun] is based in Brooklyn, New York and combines the swirling layers of sound from Shoegaze with Trip-Hop beats and Darkwave moods. Pain Sounds, this artist’s debut EP, was released this Spring as a free download on Bandcamp – as was the Goodbye single.
bandcamp

02. “Washer” by Mood Rings from Sweater Weather Forever (©2011 Double Phantom Digital)
Sweater Weather Forever is the debut EP from this Atlanta, Georgia based band which formed in 2009. The EP was released on Pink House Tapes and online at Double Phantom Digital and Bandcamp.

03. “Girl Upstairs” by Moonbeams from Radio San Francisco (©2011 Hop Skip Jump Records)
Based in San Francisco, Moonbeams is a Shoegaze and Psychedelic Pop ensemble headed by Ryan Lescure. He is supported on his recordings by several talented friends, and the live band consists of Ryan Haynes (guitar), Kyle Baudour (bass), and Alvin Fenner (drums). The CD of Radio San Francisco can be purchased from Hop Skip Jump, and digital downloads are available on Bandcamp. The upcoming LP, The Daisy Chain, is slated for release in the summer of 2011.
bandcamp | myspace | facebook | website

04. “No More Canyons” by Quiet Lights from No More Canyons (©2011 Eastern Seaboard / Old Flame Records)
Quiet Lights is Chris Curtis, Robin Fowler, Nikhil Kamineni, Yseult Tyler, and Marcus Smith, and they create aural landscapes of both light and dark, blurry sonic envelopes tinged with “looking through a glass-bottle” hazes. Currently, the band has two singles available from Bandcamp.
bandcamp | myspace | facebook | website

05. “Starfall” by Poor, Useless Me from EP001 (©2011 Poor, Useless Me)
Poor, Useless Me is a side-project Vadim Vasilyev (Sun Devoured Earth) from Aizkraukle, Latvia started in 2011. The music is heavily influenced by Astrobrite, My Bloody Valentine and Skywave. This EP was released on 3 April 2011 and has already been joined by two subsequent releases – all available for download on Bandcamp.

06. “Single Man” by Ghost Animal from Single Man/In Your Room (©2011 Ghost Animal)
Ghost Animal is a Pop duo from California currently living and studying in Portland, Oregon. They have been playing together since April 2010. Single Man/In Your Room and Through Your Eyes are both available as free downloads from Bandcamp.
bandcamp | myspace | tumblr | blogspot

07. “Underneath Tonight” by Lowtide from Underneath Tonight/Memory No. 7 (©2011 Lowtide)
Australia’s Lowtide has its origins in Three Month Sunset, a solo project Gabriel Lewis began in 2005. Once consisting of the ambient, soaring textures of a single guitar, the sound has been widened by the addition of male and female vocals, drums, and dual bass courtesy of Lucy Buckeridge, Anton Jakovljevic (The Morning After Girls), and Giles Simon (The Sun Blindness). In 2010, the band released You Are My Good Light, their debut EP, to a sold out crowd at Melbourne’s Cherry Bar. The new single can be downloaded from Bandcamp.
bandcamp | myspace

08. “Never Came Close” by Belong from Common Era (©2011 Kranky)
The music of Belong is the result of a collaboration between New Orleans, Louisiana natives Turk Dietrich and Michael Jones. The band’s mostly instrumental, 2004 debut, October Language, was composed, recorded, and produced in Dietrich’s bedroom studio as a tribute to the city and as an illustration of the beauty that can still be found in things worn and decayed. This new album utilizes instruments and technology to create a sound very similar to the original Shoegaze of the ’90s – including vocals.
kranky | myspace

09. “Sunspots” by Sunshower Orphans from Avenue Abyss (©2011 Mike G)
Sunshower Orphans is Mike G., Rob A., Travis F., and Brian A. – a bunch of lowlifes from Queens, New York who grew up just blocks away from places where The Ramones once lived. They have been playing basements, parks, and stages in and around New York City in various incarnations since 2007. The city has changed since The Ramones ruled, and the Orphans’ music reflects that, as they often make New York – in all of her manifestations – the focus of their lyrics. “Sunspots” is from their first album, Avenue Abyss, which you can download for free on Bandcamp. Their debut EP, From the Fire Escapes, is available on vinyl from State Capital Records – a local indie label, and digitally from the iTunes Store.
bandcamp | myspace | State Capital

10. “I Am Here” by Red Moon from I Am Here (©2011 Red Moon)
Red Moon is a duo comprised of sisters Eva and Katarina Thulin, who live and make music in Göteborg, Sweden. The music, which they have been writing, producing, and recording together for more than ten years, combines simple and direct melodies with complex soundscapes. Their sound reminds me very much of Azure Ray at its best and, while not strictly Shoegaze, I believe this song is close (and good) enough for me to be forgiven for including it. Red Moon has previously released a two-song single in 2003 and a four-song EP in 2006; both of which can be downloaded from the band’s website.
Record Union | soundcloud | website

All copyrighted materials used with the permission of the copyright holders.

*Sign up here to receive updates.

Link expired 12am PDT, Monday, 14 April 2011

01. “Keep It Quiet [Demo]” by Blemishes unreleased (©2011 Blemishes)
Brian, an ex-Secret Service agent from NYC, and Lauren, once an assassin for hire from New Jersey, met on the job (details are sketchy), discovered a mutual love for music, and decided to form a band. Originally part of a foursome, the two guitarists/vocalists recently decided to strike out on their own (no one knows what happened to the other two) and formed Blemishes. Still mostly in the writing process, they have only just recorded the b-side to “Keep it Quiet”; the two songs are to be released as a cassette single on bleach blonde, a friend’s startup label.
bandcamp | tumblr | bleach blonde

02. “Imagine Hearts” by Ringo Deathstarr from Colour Trip (©2011 Club AC30)
Austin, Texas’s Ringo Deathstarr is Elliott Frazier, Daniel Coborn, and Alex Gehring. Colour Trip is the band’s debut full-length. Many of the songs from previously released EPs and singles were collected on Sparkler – released in 2009 on Vinyl Junkie.
myspace | facebook | Club AC30

03. “Crystal’s Not Clear” by Between The Cities Are Stars from Degausser (©2011 KillRedRocket Records)
Between The Cities Are Stars is a duo hailing from Fresno, California, who utilize guitars, bass, drums, and vocals to make your mind melt, even as you move and groove. Heather’s infectious bass lines, complimented by Kyle’s spacey, fuzzed-out guitars, and topped off with minimal vocals – that add to rather than stand out from the music, all blend together to create sweeping sounds that will take your mind on trips of blissful chaos.
bandcamp | myspace | facebook

04. “On Your Own” by Factory Kids from FK 3rd (©2011 Tara Records)
Formed in 2008, Factory Kids is musician/artist Christina Marie (The Modern Hour) and singer/songwriter/producer Tim Chaplin (Luminous). This is their third studio album – following two remix albums. Factory Kids have also released several EPs and a single, as well as appearing on a handful of compilations.
bandcamp | myspace | facebook

05. “Chains” by The Internet unreleased (©2011 The Internet)
The Internet is a Post-Punk/Shoegaze band from Santa Barbara, California. It consists of Syd Bernardo, Marvin Dominguez, Oscar Murillo Jr., and Andrew Verdin. Their self-titled debut EP was released via iTunes and Amazon in May 2010. At present, “Chains” has not been released elsewhere.
bandcamp | facebook | website

06. “Paint a Golden Stick” by Thunder Bunny from …there is a gate (©2010 Thunder Bunny)
Named after toys his father used to fashion from old socks for the dogs to play with, Thunder Bunny was founded by Christopher Padula in New York City in 1995. After several years of encouraging progress, the band rapidly disintegrated – the way many bands unfortunately do, but now, years after the dust has settled, Christopher has resurrected Thunder Bunny as a solo project on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.
myspace | facebook

07. “Fly With the Light” by 93MillionMilesFromTheSun from Northern Sky (©2011 93MillionMilesFromTheSun)
If you like these guys as much as I do, you’ll be happy to hear that this Doncaster, UK band is preparing to release its second album in June on In At The Eye Records. Like its excellent predecessor, 2009′s self-titled debut, Northern Sky contains more than seventy minutes of Shoegazing goodness. I am also informed that the band have finished their new studio and will be playing UK dates in late April and early May.
bandcamp | myspace | Parallax | soundcloud | website

08. “Explain It To Me” by The Sky Drops from Making Mountains (©2011 Custom Made Music)
Rob Montejo, founding member of the ’90s American Shoegaze band Smashing Orange has joined with Monika Bullette to form The Sky Drops in Wilmington, Delaware. Making Mountains, a five-song EP and the band’s third release – following the highly acclaimed 2006 EP Clouds of People and the 2009 full-length Bourgeous Beat, is due to be released this spring.
myspace | facebook | website | Custom Made

09. “Never Been Alive” by The Telewire from The Telewire (©2011 The Telewire)
Stephen Thurman of Austin, Texas is The Telewire. One day not so long ago, he left a post on a shoegaze.co.uk forum informing members that he had put up his debut album on Bandcamp. I gave it a listen and liked it enough to ask Stephen for a song, which he kindly provided. The Telewire doesn’t have much of an Internet presence as yet, but Stephen is working to change that.
bandcamp

10. “Cosmic Age” by Jetman Jet Team unreleased (©2011 Jetman Jet Team)
After a two year hiatus, former members of The Pop Eccentric Brenan Chambers, Miguel Diaz, Tyler James, and Quin Dickinson have returned, added singer Alisa Dickinson (no relation to Quin) to the fold, and become Jetman Jet Team. Currently spread out around the Northwest, the team will soon congregate in Seattle – where two members now wait to welcome the others. Once the prolific songwriters are united, expect a debut album to follow shortly afterward.
bandcamp | myspace | facebook | soundcloud

All copyrighted materials used with the permission of the copyright holders.

The Cover Art for Vibrato 11.05 is a detail from an untitled photograph by Julie Lynn (of Slowness).

Track Listing:
1. “Not Tonight”
2. “Leaves Me Cold”
3. “Dreams Stripped Away”
4. “Take You Down”

Not Tonight EP by Ceremony
©2011 Custom Made Music

My Rating: ✭✭✭✭
iPod Songs: “Leaves Me Cold” and “Dreams Stripped Away”

I am delighted to see that Ceremony continue to be an exception to my “two albums and a handful of EPs” rule of Shoegazing. With the four songs on this EP, they have once again restated their commitment to my favorite musical sub-genre. This kind of dependability – some might call it predictability – could become a problem, however, and ironically, it is the title track that comes the closest to sounding like “just another Ceremony song” – not much of a slur in my opinion. “Dreams Stripped Away” has no such problem. In fact, it started off so differently, I didn’t think I was going to like it, but it quickly became my favorite song on the EP.

I may yet add “Take You Down” to my iPod, but that’s a decision I will revisit when the CD I ordered arrives in early April. Pre-orders will ship on the 29th of March. To order: follow the link to the Custom Made Music website by clicking on the cover art above. Once there, click on the cover art under the “Latest Releases” headline; the rest should be self-explanatory. The official release date for the EP is the 5th of April, which coincides nicely with the band’s departure on its first ever European tour.

European Tour Dates:
8 April: King Kong Club, Berlin, Germany
9 April: Gruner Jager, Hamburg, Germany
11 April: Köln, Germany
12 April: Exhaus, Trier, Germany
13 April: Sonnenkeller, Balingen, Baden-Wurt Germany
14 April: Zwolfzehn, Stuttgart, Germany
15 April: Kranhalle, Munich, Germany
16 April: Deposito Giordani, Pordenone, Italy

The Interview
After a few minutes of trying to use an inelligant, three-sided Gmail chat in the manner I suggested, Geoffrey must have figured out how to use Gmail’s group chat function. Suddenly three people in three different locations were all participating in the same chat. What follows is more or less what they had to say.

NWs: First off, thanks for doing this interview. Thanks, too, for letting me use “Black & White” on Vibrato 11.04.
Geoffrey: Thank you, Rob, for including us.
NWs: My pleasure.

NWs: I believe I read that Slowness became the band’s name not all that long before the EP was released in 2010. Is that right?
Geoffrey: Yes, we had a couple of other names before finally arriving at Slowness. They never really felt right at the gut level, but Slowness did.
NWs: Interesting. Who came up with that name?
Geoffrey: We lifted it off a Milan Kundera novel.
NWs: What were some of the previous names?
Geoffrey: Mothers of the Disappeared and Past & Future.
Julie: We came up with those names because we needed to have a name to play out, but they both always felt a bit goofy to us.
NWs: Isn’t the first the title of a U2 song from The Joshua Tree?
Geoffrey: Yes, and we obviously still hadn’t found what we were looking for.
NWs: Good one.

NWs: Alright, now you have a name you like, so introduce me to the band. Tell me a little bit about who plays what instruments, how the songs get written, that sort of thing.
Julie: Geoffrey and I collaborate in writing many of the songs, though he writes all of the lyrics and plays a major role in the arranging and producing. I play bass, keys, and do backing vocals. And we’re really happy to have Scott Putnam playing drums and doing backing vocals now.
NWs: So, who sings “Black & White”?
Geoffrey: We both sing together most of the way through that one.
NWs: I thought it was basically female vocals, but whenever I venture a guess, I invariably get it wrong and end up looking foolish. I have been burned often enough that I no longer care to speculate openly.
Julie: Ha ha! From what gets thrown on the record player, I know how many falsetto singers have influenced Geoffrey.
Geoffrey: After several failed attempts, I hesitated for so long to start a new band, mainly because I always envisioned female vocals accompanying mine on my records, but couldn’t make it happen. It took finding Julie, a summer of finding my own, new voice, and Monte Vallier’s production to achieve that. Now, Scott adds beautiful harmonies to our new songs, so we’re feeling good about our next record, which we’re also working on with Monte.
Julie: Yes, while Monte is not in the band as such, he has played a crucial role in making our music.
NWs: Geoffrey, what did finding your own, new voice entail?
Geoffrey: What I had done, vocally, prior to Slowness did not work for me. There was a difference between what I heard in my head and what came out on tape. So, when I spent a summer in the country, house-sitting, I had the luxury of standing in a room alone everyday for hours, with no one but the dog listening to me as I experimented with different techniques. I just started doing and re-doing demos until the voice sounded right. Being alone and losing most of my inhibitions freed me up to try different things until I finally found the sound I was looking for.

The members of Slowness clearly enjoying their interview with NWshoegazer.

NWs: Are you guys Bay Area natives? How long have you known one another? Have you been in other bands?
Julie: Geoffrey and I have known each other well for more than ten years. Neither of us is from the Bay Area. He’s from upstate New York, and I’m from Canada originally, but grew up around the globe. Slowness is my first band.
NWs: Around the globe? Tell me more.
Julie: I was born in Canada, but then moved to Kenya, then Mexico, and then Hawaii. My dad was a Research Ecologist, and since there wasn’t much work back in those days for ecologists, he found work where he could, and we kept moving. I always went to public schools and just had to adapt to being thrown into new worlds. In a lot of ways, it was a good way to grow up, though I’m sometimes envious of people who grew up in a certain place, knowing their friends for most of their lives.
NWs: Yeah, changing schools, especially mid-year was the worst. My dad’s from Buffalo, but he has lived in Niagara Falls as well. So, I’ve been up in Geoffrey’s neck of the woods.
Geoffrey: We were both born in that region within a few hours drive of each other. I went to Niagara Falls when I was thirteen. That was wild. I kept picturing people going over in barrels and inner-tubes.
Julie: I’ve never been, but I love going back to the Northeast. One thing we don’t have out here in San Francisco is real seasons. We’ve been talking about doing a tour in Japan this winter so we can get some snow.
NWs: Did you know each other back East?
Julie: No. We met out here through mutual friends, and, over the years, we’ve done a few other collaborations that worked very well. From my perspective, it seems like the experience of the collaboration is as important as the music. It has to be cooperative and fun. Which it is.
Geoffrey: Otherwise, forget it. I joined my first band as a drummer when I was thirteen and have been stumbling through them ever since. My first guitarist wanted to take it outside to fight when we couldn’t agree on the chorus in a Judas Priest song. The last meaningful project I was involved in, before Slowness, was playing guitar on tour with [the] caseworker.

NWs: How and when did you come together and decide to form the band that became Slowness.
Geoffrey: Three years ago, when [the] caseworker was in the process of moving away from SF to different parts of the world, I was left with a bunch of guitar sketches. Demos, I guess you’d call them. One day, Julie gave them a listen and was like, “well, let’s dust them off and make them into something.”
I was fortunate to be house-sitting in the country at the time. There were chickens and other animals, so my friend Erik Gross would come and help me fix the fences and stuff. The place had a big living room, so I asked Erik to bring his drums up, which he did. We set them up in the living room and recorded a few songs; Julie engineered most of them. She bought a bass, started learning how to play, and laid down the bass tracks. The dog would bark at the drums; you can hear that on the demos.
NWs: But not on the EP. I know [the] caseworker; I have These Weeks Should Be Remembered.
Julie: I love that album.
Geoffrey: Monte’s on that one. I was a fan of Half Film in the late 90s. Then they disappeared and came back on the scene as [the] caseworker and released These Weeks Should Be Remembered. I went to their gigs, got to know them, and they became good friends of ours. Conor suggested we record with Monte. He also played guitar on the EP and helped us mix it. We did about twelve songs, which we shaved down to six and then down to four. Then the legendary Kramer contacted us on MySpace, said he liked what we were doing, and offered to master our mixes. We were delighted to work with him.
NWs: You know, I couldn’t believe it when I read that Kramer mastered your EP. I think I owe the man an apology. I have always held him responsible for those superfluous and sometimes annoying bits of noise found in some Galaxie 500 songs, but there is nothing like that in your EP; it’s seamless. It’s like that scene in Amadeus where Mozart explains to the Emperor that his music has just as many notes as it needs, no more, no less.
Geoffrey: We are editors more than anything. We produce a lot of annoying bits ourselves and have to step back and say “no to that one!”
Kramer was great in providing atmospherics for Galaxie 500, and was as ground-breaking as an indie producer as Dean Wareham was as a songwriter, and as the band was at doing it their way without anyone’s intervention. They only had Kramer make it better, which is what he did when he mastered our EP.
NWs: I cannot argue with that. I’m sorry for doubting you, Kramer. For my penance, I am going to listen to The Big Sell-Out and meditate on your greatness.

NWs: I’d say that your music was clearly Shoegaze, but it doesn’t remind me of anyone from the original scene. Who do you think you most sound like? Who are your influences?
Julie: We didn’t really start putting ourselves into that category until it seemed like everyone else was saying that we were Shoegaze.
NWs: Well, if sounding like MBV, JaMC, Ride, or Slowdive is necessary in order to be Shoegaze, you aren’t, but I still think you are.
Geoffrey: We do love that stuff, but no more so than Miles Davis or R.E.M.. Julie’s mad about Django Reinhardt, and Scott’s crazy about Ween; I’m still in love with Rush. So there you go.
NWs: Got to love those Ayn Rand inspired lyrics. My favorite Rush album is Subdivisions, what’s yours?
Julie: I came to Rush late, because I was so in love with Post-Punk when I was young that I disdained any type of Metal. I’ve had a lot of catching up to do.
Geoffrey: Signals is my favorite, too. But equally Grace Under Pressure, as I saw them on that tour – my first concert as a young lad without parental guidance, and it was an out-of-body experience.
NWs: Doh! I meant Signals. I was having a discussion with a Last.fm friend, and I told her that I don’t sing Shoegaze songs in the shower; I am more likely to burst out with, “Though his mind is not for rent…”
Geoffrey: “…to any god or government.”
Julie: I don’t sing Shoegaze in the shower either. I guess ’cause I don’t know what the lyrics are half the time. A lot of the time, I love the vocals as just another instrument.
NWs: That is exactly how I feel; I don’t always understand them, but the lyrics have got to be there. With Shoegaze, I can usually only remember the words while singing along.
Julie: I think the new EP we’re recording shows more of a Metal influence than was evident on Hopeless but Otherwise.
Geoffrey: Yes, we will be banned from all Shoegaze websites when it comes out in the fall.

NWs: I was thinking that there is some irony in the choice of Slowness for the band’s name; things seem to happen pretty fast with you guys. Some of the bands I’ve been in contact with have yet to play a single show, others are hoping to raise enough money thru Bandcamp to finance a release on CD or vinyl, while you have put out an EP that Kramer mastered, toured the U.S., and all four of your songs have been turned into videos. How do you explain this?
Geoffrey: We’ve been together for almost three years, and as of now, we have only a four-song EP to show for it. We’ve toured because we chose to, and we pay for everything ourselves. We’re not waiting for someone else to help us. The filmmakers who made the videos are friends of ours who do what they do out of love, not for money or anything else. Kramer is a mystery and a blessing. We don’t expect anything and don’t think we deserve anything, but we’re in love with what we’re doing, and every once in a while, we get a little surprise that delights us.
NWs: I’ll have to disagree with you on the deserving part. I like the fact that you distilled twelve songs down to four, because those four songs are excellent. I am very much a quality over quantity kind of guy, and I like your philosophy in regard to doing things for yourselves. I suspect that if you weren’t worth knowing, you wouldn’t have the friends to make videos, etc..
Geoffrey: Marty, Brad, and Michael (the filmmakers) are all friends of Julie’s. She’s the one who gets things off the ground. She booked the tour and built our website.

Video by B. S. Wise

NWs: Tell me about the tour; where did you go, and what are some of the best stories that came out of it? I am particularly interested in your visit to Portland. I hate that I missed the show, but I had not yet become aware of you, and I have no idea where that venue is; I’ve never heard of it. What was it like? Who did you play with? Will you ever come back?
Julie: The tour was a very interesting experience in lots of ways. We went through Denver, all the way to Connecticut, and back. We had many wonderful experiences with the people at the shows and with the bands who played with us.
The booker and crowds at the Fishtank in Denver were fantastic, and we definitely want to go back there. It is a very underground scene, where it is clear that everyone is at the show for the music. As soon as we arrived in Denver – after a long detour through the Sierra’s – complete strangers started helping us out. It was strange to go from there to Texas, where we had several near death experiences.
In two days, we had two car accidents that were beyond our control, and in the second one, hours before my birthday, I almost got flattened against our van by another vehicle that blindly backed into us. Always nice to remember to appreciate being alive! Right after that experience, we arrived in Granbury, Texas, at Studio 216, where the owners of this great little, off-the-map venue took excellent care of us. They even had a few birthday cakes handy (though not originally intended for me).
We thought we were out of the woods until we entered Tennessee in the wee hours of the morning. When we stopped at a little gas station to refuel, we told the woman at the register about the lunar eclipse going on outside. She had on a T-shirt with “Welcome to America. Now speak English!” printed on it, and she looked at us like we were crazy for caring about an eclipse. Later that night, we played an open air show in the backwoods of Tennessee, with every variety of moonshine being offered to us.
New York City was great, and we really enjoyed playing with Dead Leaf Echo, who we’ll tour with this summer. We stopped at another really cool venue in Pittsburgh, Garfield Artworks. Great crowd. After seeing the Badlands for the first time, we stopped to watch the World Cup Final in Wyoming, and ended up in a bar where we had to wonder if we’d make it out of a Meth nightmare. We almost played with For Against in Lincoln, Nebraska, but the schedules didn’t work out.
Portland was great. Our friends Foreign Cinema came up from SF to play with us. We’ll definitely get back there, possibly in June.
NWs: That’s good to hear.

NWs: About Europe and Japan. Are the dates and venues set? Have you been invited to play shows in Japan?
Julie: We’ve been talking to some bands in Japan and just thinking about where we want to go.
Geoffrey: Monte shared our EP with some labels there, and we have a few connections, so we’ll see where it goes. As for Europe, we know that’s where our fans are. The first person to buy our EP was in Rome, and we have some booking connections there too.
NWs: The Dead Leaf Echo shows, will those be in the States?
Geoffrey: Yes, we’ll do Boston, New York, Philadelphia, D.C., and Baltimore with them in July.

NWs: At the moment, you’re in the studio making another EP: For Those Who Wish to See the Glass Half-Full. Will that come out before your trip to Europe?
Geoffrey: We’re not sure. We’ve had a tendency in the past to rush things along, and it never works. And the production on the new one is getting more and more interesting, perhaps we’ll use some strings and really dub it out. We’re going to take a day to mix each song, then master, then package, then promote, then… So we’ll see. We just want to go play in these places, whether or not we have it done.
NWs: Again, I admire the philosophy.
Geoffrey: There’s no other way to go about it.
NWs: Oh, there is; it just doesn’t yield the best results.
Geoffrey: Right. Especially these days. It’s so confusing, because everything now is so instant, and we expect immediate results. But we’ve been around the block enough times to know that slow is the way to go.
NWs: Hence, Slowness.
Geoffrey: I guess we chose the right name.
NWs: It certainly seems that way.

At this point, we agreed that we were all hungry and had covered a lot of ground in a very enjoyable chat, so we decided to stop here.

Hopeless but Otherwise by Slowness
©2010 Slowness

My Rating: ★★★★☆
iPod Songs: “Black & White”, “Duck & Cover”, and “Slowboat”

The only reason “Little King” didn’t make it to my iPod is that it is over nine minutes long. If you like Shoegaze, you’ll want to get this EP. Amazingly, during the month of March, Slowness is giving it away in a high quality, Variable Bit-Rate MP3 format at no cost to you. Simply click on the cover art shown above – a link to the band’s website – and, from there, navigate to the music page and click on the link to CDBaby.

*This post takes its name from the first song on Voyager One‘s From The New Nation Of Long Shadows.

Link expired 12am PDT, Friday, 1 April 2011

Vibrato 11.04
01. “Arristea” by Mint Julep from Songs About Snow (©2008 Unseen)
Fellow Portlanders, Keith and Hollie Kenniff are Mint Julep. The husband and wife duo released Songs About Snow in 2008 and, early last month, Adorn – a three-song EP; their second album, Save Your Season is due later this year. Keith also composes music under the monikers Helios and Goldmund. Different versions of the song “Arristea” are found on Songs About Snow (available from Unseen) and Adorn (which is for sale on Bandcamp).
bandcamp | myspace | unseen

02. “Lady Luck” by bliss.city.east unreleased (©2011 bliss.city.east)
bliss.city.east was formed by Kim and Perry, two members of Skylight, in 2008. Discovering that they worked well together and wanting to play live shows – a difficult proposition with the rest of Skylight located in Boston, Kim and Perry started off on a journey called bliss.city.east that has only just begun. Somewhere along the way, they picked up Eric, who seems to fit in pretty well. The three of them have recently embarked on producing an Internet radio program called The Machine.
Kim and Perry are also involved in The Project Morpheme with Dean Garcia (Curve and SPC ECO).
bandcamp | myspace | facebook | soundcloud | reverbnation

03. “Breathless” by Young Prisms from Friends For Now (©2011 Kanine Records)
Somewhere in the vicinity of Golden Gate Bridge lives a band comprised of Matt Allen, Stef Hodapp, Giovanni Betteo, and Jordan Silbert. They call themselves Young Prisms, and their debut full-length is a CD you ought to have in your collection.
myspace | facebook | kanine | tumblr

04. “Somethin’ Is Better Than Nothin’” by Tashaki Miyaki from Tashak It To Me (©2011 Tashaki Miyaki)
Preferring to “keep it about the music”, Tashaki Miyaki remains a mystery to me, but Tashak It To Me is a two-song single available as a free download from the band’s bandcamp page.

05. “Sacrificial Anode” by folie adieu from folie adieu (©2011 folie adieu)
Two people experimenting in sonic ambience. Cascading guitars ripple across the dreamsphere while hypnotic drumbeats hover and pulsate above the soundscape. California expats transplanted to and reunited in the Midwest. Musical chemistry solidified, agenda established, guitars and drums, treated noise and treated light… aural experiments commenced in a basement. folie adieu is a two-person band currently based in Wichita, Kansas, who subscribe to a ‘minimal is maximal’ ethos. Established in late 2009, they released their self-titled EP in January 2011. The multi-layered guitars, ‘out there’ drums, and non-autotuned vocals provide a soundtrack for both mood and motion. folie adieu is Andrea Drongoski on guitars and vocals, and Brian Winters on drums. “Sacrificial Anode” is the lead track from their debut EP.
myspace | facebook | reverbnation | website

06. “Oceans (And Blue Skies)” by Sonnet LVIII from Owe No Homage Unto The Sun (©2011 Sonnet LVIII)
Inspired by Ride, Chapterhouse, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Adorable and My Bloody Valentine, childhood friends Dale, Ron and Elmer formed Sonnet LVIII in 1992. Ron’s brother Romel and his friend, Gonzalo, joined a couple months later. Fast forward to early 2011, when the band decided to combine all of its recordings into one online release called Owe No Homage Unto The Sun, which is available for download at their Bandcamp page for $1 – now, that’s a bargain.
bandcamp | facebook

07. “Black & White” by Slowness from Hopeless but Otherwise (©2010 Slowness)
Slowness is a caught-in-the-fog Drone-Pop trio with songs about love and war spinning in a whirlpool of hypnotic rhythms and driving bass lines, layered guitars and rich harmonies. The band released its debut EP, Hopeless but Otherwise, in 2010. After touring the US, the group is back in the studio with producer Monte Vallier, and is scheduled to tour Europe in June 2011.
myspace | facebook | website

08. “I Saw The Ghost That Follows You” by Bloody Knives from Burn It All Down (©2010 KillRedRocket Records)
Bloody Knives are an Industrial Shoegaze trio from Austin, Texas. Members Preston Maddox (bass, voice, keyboards, samples, and programming) Jake McCown (Drums, noise, programming, and art) and Jim Moon (sound manipulator) combine the sounds of heavy Punk and Metal with blurry ambient electronics. Burn It All Down is the brilliant followup to their self-titled, debut EP. A new album is due to be released this summer.
bandcamp | myspace | facebook | KillRedRocket

09. “Sun Is Alive” by Tribes of the City from Recipe of the Golden Dream (©2009 Tribes of the City )
Hailing from Riga, Latvia, Tribes of the City blaze a trail between magic and technology, the sacred and profane, society and solitude. Six musicians, coming from different backgrounds and holding different world views, blend their talents together and manage to create a sensational sound which can transport the listener to distant and imaginary worlds. One can detect the rumbling of the sea, the noise of the city, the murmur of the forest, and the crackle of electricity in their music. People call them modern Shoegazers and speak of the special energy of their live performances, but Tribes of the City just play music, and they love what they do.
myspace

10. “Drones” by The Rosen Association from The Rosen Association (©2010 The Rosen Association)
The Rosen Association is four individuals who came together in the Fall of 2009 after the Muses decreed that there be a new genre of music: Shoegaze Dark Pop. Taking their name from the android-producing company in the Philip K. Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, TRA combine elements of Electronic and Rock Music, creating a unique Post-Rock sound with surprising Pop sensibilities. After exposure to the auditory braid of warmth, ice, twilight, stardust, space, drones, and dark matter woven by the four Rosens: Spencer, Jason, Matt, and Rachel, witnesses often say, “It’s Shoegaze you can dance to.”
facebook | CD Baby | website

All copyrighted materials used with the permission of the copyright holders.

The Cover Art for Vibrato 11.04 is a detail from the print I’m Only Human by Adam Watkins (of Tone Rodent).

Check out more of his fabulous artwork here.