Another case of me randomly making up genre names here, but there's a kind of circle of stuff I've been listening to lately that I think of as 'epic shimmer-pop'. There's invention, looking back at old Slowdive shoegaze through a filter of more recent Beach House-type dream pop, but adding a kind of soaring aesthetic that made Funeral Arcade Fire's only good album (there: I said it!). Money, in particular, have absolutely aced this sound: they've made it oddly sparse, detached, icy, but with so much heart. Alongside Rhye's Woman, their album Shadow of Heaven was my favourite debut of 2013. Somehow they've allowed their admiration for 'I Wanna Be Adored' and 'Waterfall' be a license to make music that sounds brilliant, rather than an excuse to make music that sounds shit, as so many other bands have done in the past.
One of the best bands I saw live last year was G R E A T W A V E S, supporting How To Dress Well at the Whitworth in Manchester. They played an absolutely incredible set filled with audio-visual soundscapes, blowing me away. There's more blissed-out ambience here than in the Money album, but I simply cannot wait for more releases from them.
Also ambient, and also Manchester-based in as far as I can make out, is whoever is releasing as transmission13. It's instrumental, much quieter than the other two, but still haunting and shimmering.
Lastly, I'll put in a word for Lanterns On The Lake. I hate the video for this, because it pulls perilously close to horrid Wes Anderson-esque twee (but just about gets out of jail because I think it reminds me of a Smashing Pumpkins video, but which one I can't remember). Anyway, it's easily the most radio-friendly tune here, but their album still has something of the shimmering soar about it, despite its more obviously commercial hooks.
Lanterns on the Lake lost me forever after a really poor and self-indulgent set opening up for Explosions in the Sky at the Brixton Academy. I hadn't heard of Money or the other two and the Money is brilliant! Will give the others more of a listen soon. This sentence is brilliant and explains so much contemporary British music: "Somehow they've allowed their admiration for 'I Wanna Be Adored' and 'Waterfall' be a license to make music that sounds brilliant, rather than an excuse to make music that sounds shit, as so many other bands have done in the past."
ReplyDeleteYeah, Lanterns on the Lake actually was included as a bit of an afterthought, because the three other bands are Mancunian, and I wanted to draw out the geography a little. They're not a patch on Money or G R E A T W A V E S, and I think they're gunning for the Radio 2 playlist at times, which can be a sin. I really recommend the Money album, "Shadow of Heaven". The depth of the guitar play, the layered overplay (I don't know what else to call it), is amazing.
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