Come Alive with A Strange Day - An Interview

Para não perder o costume, novamente a Austrália aterriza nas páginas do TBTCI, hoje representada pelo duo A Strange Day.

Um delicioso cruzamento sonoro entre o Massive Attack, MBV e o Cure, se é que isso pode ser possível. Mas no caso do A Strange Day é, funciona perfeitamente, a sinergia entre as fritações hipnóticas do trip hop, ao lado do shoegaze soterrado de efeitos aliado a melancolia subliminar..

A único problema é que o A Strange Day tem apenas um EP e dois singles, mas poderia ter uma discografia muito maior, porque tudo deles vale ouro.

Pérolas sonoras para o seu prazer, cortesia do A Strange Day.

***** Interview with A Strange Day *****

Q. When did A Strange Day start? Tell us about the history…
A. We started around 5 years ago. Shane’s background has always been electronic based. Dylan's background is Guitar Heavy.

One day we both found ourselves in the same room talking about all the influences we loved and for some reason it seemed like a good idea to do something bold and blend it all into a mess of noise. We threw together a self titled EP and have continued to define our sound into what it is today.

Q: Who are your influences?
A. There are many influences, but we think the ones that stand out most would be bands like The Cure, NIN, My Bloody Valentine and Massive Attack… We could go on, but that feels like it covers us.

Q. Make a list of 5 albums of all time…
A. We will break this up between the two of us as there would be too much room for debate…
Shane:
The Cure - Wish
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Bonobo - The North Borders
D'Angelo - Voodoo

Dylan:
The Beatles - White Album
Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile
Temple Of The Dog - s/t
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Black Sabbath - Masters Of Reality

Q. How do you feel playing live?
A. Playing live is a big part of A Strange Day. What we like to capture is the immersion of some of the great electronic acts such as Massive Attack and mix that with the energy and intensity of bands such as My Bloody Valentine. Playing live is the way we always intend our music to be heard - LOUD.

Q. How do you describe A Strange Day sounds?
A. Atmospheric and layered with thick, deep guitar tones. We have come across some very interesting descriptions from people over time.. To quote a good friend, he described us as "unique powerful, stunningly evocative and symphonic array of heavy droning guitar accompanied by an electronic wonderland of sound.”. Always thought that sounded nice.

Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs ?
A. Honestly it is usually just us in the studio with our arsenal of tools. Shane is a sound engineer and has his own recording studio so we are completely self recorded.

Q. Which new bands do you recommend?
A. White Walls (Dylan’s other band). Shane has always been a huge fan. Loose Tooth, See Saw, Faceless Burial.. These are a few of the newer bands popping up in Melbourne right now. They’re all incredibly different but I think that’s why it’s so good.

Q: Which band would you love to made a cover version of?
A. The Cure… definitely The Cure.

Q: What are your plans for the future?
A. We plan to release our first album this year. We have finished recording it so it is all ready to be pressed. We have released the first single "Into Your Arms" which you can hear on our bandcamp or Soundcloud. We will release another single soon. We will be playing shows and adding more to our live show as we go. We are starting to incorporate additional mediums such as visuals, more involved electronics and always more guitar amps - Lucky for us Dylan builds them himself under the name - Blacktone. It’s all very exciting.

Q: Any parting words?
A. Thanks for reaching out to us! It is encouraging knowing our music is making it’s way around the world. We look forward to making more music for us and anyone else that happens to tune in.
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Thanks

https://astrangeday.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/astrangedayband/

A Strange Day, "ASD" - Track by Track

Aterrizando nas páginas do TBTCI novamente, os australianos do A Strange Day chegam para celebrar o lançamento de seu primeiro disco, "ASD", nasceu em 25 de Maio, aperfeiçoa as obsessões dos caras, trip hop, shoegaze, psicodelismo e melancolia, tudo em doses generosas.

O A Strange Day não esconde suas referências, entenda mais sobre elas aqui, ao contrário, os caras explicitam-as mas com um olhar atual. "ASD" assim torna-se a cada audição mais e mais intenso, mas veja, o disco não é digerível logo de cara, todo esse caldeirão de referências pega os tímpanos menos iniciados de forma torta, é preciso caleja-los para que a satisfação seja plena.

E para facilitar ainda mais, o A Strange Day explica abaixo, os segredos, revelando todas as facetas de "ASD" , um trabalho grande.

Experimente experimentar.

***** A Strange Day, "ASD" - Track by Track *****

Between the Lines:
Shane: This track has always felt to me like it was a bit of a showcase track. It's got a little bit of all the styles we have experimented with and then smashed them together into an audio tie dye of sorts. I think it braces the listeners a bit into what they are to expect for the rest of the LP without giving too much away. Though there is a certain level of disjointedness within this track that I don't think is prevalent through the rest of the LP. Not just the fact it jumps from synth and beats to a colourful shoegaze chorus and then to a noisy arrangement of chaos and beating toms, but because during the writing process itself. We had come back to this one a number of times and it was very much a patience game until one day it all clicked into place and changed from chaotic to organised chaos.

Filters:
Shane: Now this track is possibly my favourite, but most likely because of a much more personal attachment. This song was technically our "first" song in a manner of speaking. We have been playing and experimenting for years just for fun, but then out of nowhere we wrote this. I think we both felt like we had hit what it was we were looking for and felt a sense of direction. It was like a lot of what we were doing was leading up to this style. When we first put a demo together I couldn't help but think "I have never heard something quite like this before..." and it became a bit of a benchmark. Even now, since we have introduced Dave as our drummer it was an incredibly satisfying song to crack. I also feel it's one of those tracks that's a real journey. Especially once the 5th layer of guitar kicks in at the end to push it to a gear you assumed it was already in.

Into your arms:
Shane: Ah yeah. Simply put for a long time we just referred to this song as 80s. It has also been described to me as "kind of like tears for fears but without all that stuff". I think that has always been my favourite description of us. In timeline of writing this song came right after filters, so it was suiting to follow suit on the record. It was right after we felt we had started to adopt our new found style and naturally found ourselves writing something a but more catchy and super cheesy (but in the best way of course). We picked it out as the first single right away, even before finishing writing the album.

Dylan : This is my favourite track on the album. I feel the album takes you on a journey and this track is a real pinnacle even though there is still more to come. Most lyrics on the record portray a sense of new love and tough times. This song reflects a real personal turning point.

Come Alive:
Shane: I enjoy this one a lot as a good way to break up the album. I'm sure Dylan will be able to say a lot more about this one than myself but I really enjoyed doing a little homage to our young grunge selves. I expect we’ll be playing around with this style a lot more.

Dylan : This track came out of nowhere. We recorded it the same day it was written and it was exactly what the record needed.. a break haha. All the tracks so far were sounding huge and epic and we needed something to break it up. Initially the idea was to keep it super chill and minimal with just one guitar and vocals. But as we recorded it we wrote a few extra elements and lead guitar lines that we loved which helped it evolve into the song it is on the record. It still gives a nice relaxed vibe straight after “into your arms” which fits perfectly.

Gazer:
Shane: The oldest of the lot. We have been playing this one for quite awhile and out of all the old tracks and demo albums we only kept this one. It's a pretty straight out slow, shoegaze track. Back in our soundcloud days it was always the most popular demo and people had frequently asked when it would be released properly. In our true style it took years, but I'm really glad it's out now.

Emptiness:
Shane: This was our weird phantom song. Similar to Between the Lines it started as an old piece we wrote that we kept trying to come back too time and time again until the song took a mind of its own, with influence of ourselves and computer malfunctions. We legitimately also heard the structure for the first time ourselves after a computer crash, and when we reopened it it was all messed up and how it is now. I don't think we thought we were allowed to change it more after that and said to each other “well that's got to be the end of the album” and of course now it is.

Dylan : As Shane mentioned this song was a bit of a phantom song. We first wrote all the parts one night and it was certainly darker and more experimental than our other songs. We knew it had to be the ending song on the album but weren’t sure how we were going to bring it all together. This song builds from start to finish both musically and lyrically. I always like records to have a big ending. I feel it ties up the album as a whole and leaves you waiting for what’s to come..
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Thanks

https://astrangeday.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/astrangedayband/

Some Strange Alchemy by Plasticstatic - Track by Track

Não é de hoje que o duo Ryan e Keisha, ou, Plasticstatic para os íntimos é sócio de carteirinha do TBTCI.

Tive a honra de contar com eles em inúmeros projetos, mas o fato é que desde que ouvi o EP "Anchors" lançado em 2012, foi basicamente amor a primeira audição, desde então acompanho cada passo deles, e é notório o amadurecimento musical.

A mescla de psicodelismo com pós punk do início foi dando lugar a elementos experimentais, gradativamente mais densos e soturnos, muito por conta da influência do duo por Psychic TV, Coil, Legendary Pink Dots, entre outros.

"Repeat"o primeiro álbum de 2014 já indicava tais mudanças, mas o ápice dessa desconstrução experimental chegou há poucos dias atrás, "Some Strange Alchemy", lançado precisamente em 21 de Agosto, é uma verdadeira odisseia com tons extravagantes e inteiramente concebido pelo lado negro da vida. A vibe do álbum indica dor, desespero e por consequência a morte, mas, veja bem, por meios obscuros todas estas mazelas podem ser a redenção, certo?

"Some Strange Alchemy" é intenso e, consome o ouvinte desde os primeiros momentos de "Out of Nothing" até a derradeira, "Into Nothing". 

Meu conselho é, atreva-se a adentrar ao mundo do Plasticstatic e tente compreender que o mundo não vive somente de selfies e sorrisos, mas o que realmente vale, é compreender a obra em seu DNA, para isso, o TBTCI convidou Ryan para descrever em detalhes, com requintes cruéis de sinceridade explícita, cada um dos dez mandamentos do álbum.

Apague a luz e tente sair vivo.

***** Some Strange Alchemy - Track by Track *****

"I wasn't planning on revealing anything I'm about to write. There's a chance that knowing these things will have a negative impact on anyone listening to the album. The thing is, this is what the album meant to me when I wrote it. It isn't all mine anymore. Whatever this album means to anyone hearing it, that is exactly what it is."  - Ryan T Winn


Out of Nothing - Each song on this album represents a stage in life, so this is the conception. The album is also divided into two halves, which is why there is a long fade-in at the beginning of the first and sixth tracks, and a long fade-out at the end of the fifth and tenth tracks. I don’t want to give away the reason for that, but there’s a big clue in the CD booklet. Musically, a lot of inspiration came from watching broadcasts that Josh Robert Thompson was doing the past couple of years. He’s one of the funniest people alive (he was the voice and operator of Geoff the robot skeleton — among other things — on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, as well as doing voices on Family Guy, and he’s made one of the funniest and creative pilots imaginable), but he also makes really good electronic music. Some nights he would talk about music he liked (Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, among lots of others), some nights he would perform his own music, and sometimes he would talk about stuff like the documentary I Dream of Wires. Keisha and I had already started to head down a more synth-heavy path, but this pushed us even more. Listening to someone who is passionate about something has a way of doing that.

Some Strange Alchemy - This song represents the formation of an identity, a realization that we came from something, and the creations of myths to try to explain why. I’ve wanted to go back to my post-punk roots for some time, and this was the first track that really went in that direction in a satisfying way. Musically it was originally inspired by the bass line to the Psychic TV song “Higher and Higher”, though that song has way more energy than mine. I saw them perform it at the record release show for Hell Is Invisible, Heaven Is Her/e, and the floor was bouncing more than at any other show I’ve ever witnessed. It was incredible. As I started writing our song, I made sure to take it in a different direction so as not to outright steal it.

The Past In Reverse - This was originally titled “The Surrealist’s Grimoire”. It’s about the stage in life where anything seems possible. In our own minds, anything IS possible. When we are able to take those possibilities and infuse them into the real world, wonderful things can happen if our intent is positive. When the intent is negative, we end up with big problems.

A Line That Never Moves - This represents the stage of life when some reject old truths, and begin an internal search for a new one. It may not sound like it, but it was inspired by Acid House. The beat doesn’t come from that, but the synth line that repeats throughout the song does.

The Darkest Night - The first half of life can be full of possibilities and positivity. This is the result of the realization that the world around us is sinking in a way that is beyond our control, while trying not to let it change us. Not wanting to give up hope. This version was recorded before the single version that was released just before the 2016 USA presidential election. I don’t want to get into politics at all, but I wanted to write something that had a positive message because I knew we would need it. The album version almost sounds like a remix of the single, but for the single I muted a lot of the synths, recorded the guitar parts in one day, and tightened up the structure.

The Anchored Moon - The darkness starts to find its way in. I am searching for light, even if it isn’t directly from the source. As beautiful as the moon is, it just reflects light. It’s like an architect who can design beautiful things, but never created anything. We always want the source, but we usually settle for a distortion of it.

The Dying Tree - Life is approaching its end. It isn’t a terrible thing, though the realization of it can certainly feel that way. Transformation is beauty. The music for this track was originally going to be “The Dead Tree” on the companion album Songs From Thee Static Lodge. A few weeks before finishing this album, I decided that track wasn’t strong enough. I created this one from scratch and finished it in a weekend. I used the same lyrics, but I added the spoken word section from a poem I wrote 15 years ago on the first night I drank absinthe. I wrote a lot that night, and lines from those writings have occasionally appeared in my songs ever since.

A Token Void - Death is very close. Looking back on life, and trying to give it a narrative that makes sense. In the end, I feel that living a life of truth is the most important thing.

The Alchemist - Death is the great alchemist.

Into Nothing - We become what we once were.
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Thanks

https://plasticstatic.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/plasticstaticsound/

Message In The Sky with The Planets Collide - An Interview

Stephen Dunham é o Planets Collide que diga-se de passagem esta prestes a lancar seu debut, isso mesmo, prestes a lancar, ou seja cheira o frescor a magia e as viagens de algo absolutamente novo, mas cuidado, o novo pode te pegar de tal jeito e fazer você viciar ao extremo,

Message in the Sky é a música que esta no soundcloud e no bandcamp da banda e puta que pariu, não dá pra ouvir uma vez só, você escuta e coloca de novo e de novo e de novo e comeca a voar literalmente de acordo com a letra da música.

Ecos de Chapterhouse, madchester, ou tudo junto e misturadíssimo.

Me arrisco a dizer que se alguém descobrir isso, vai virar o hit do verão nas terras da rainha, e vejam o Planets Collide é da Austrália, a água daquele lugar esta infestada de ácido eu acho viu.....

Não percam tempo, viciem-se com o Planets Collide

***** Interview with Tha Planets Collide *****

Q. When did Planets Collide start, tell us about the history...
A: The Planets Collide is a sound that I started developing about a year or 2 ago. The previous band I played in was sort of a mixture of Shoegaze and Psychedelic music. I've always, as a musician been into the idea of experimentation as an art form, making music that sounds strange or unfamiliar but can also capture a listener's ear. I'd previously wrote most of the music I was doing on guitar, however one day I was walking down my street and saw a nice early 70s organ on the side of the road with a sign on it saying 'Free', I picked it up and ever since I've started to write a lot of material on organ instead of guitar and after many night's of staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning recording and experimenting with different sounds I started to develop the sound of The Planets Collide.

Q: Who are your influences?
A: I like a lot of different music, all the way from 60s Psychedelia to 90s Noise rock/Shogaze, Dance and Gansta rap. Stuff like Primal Scream and Spacemen 3 are hugely Influential on my sound, however I think you can hear a lot of different influences in it.

Q. Make a list of 5 albums of all time…
A: Such a hard question! as I said before I like lots different music, it will be hard to pin point down my top 5 and I'll probably end up thinking I missed something out so I'll just mention 5 albums that I can think of from the top of my head, not in any particular order:

'Screamadelica by Primal Scream' (1991)
I remember when I first heard 'Higher than the Sun" off this album and as soon as the breakdown came in around the 2 minute mark I was hooked! This album is one big party from start to finish, filled with youthful energy. Whenever I put it on, I always feel like getting up and moving or attempting to create something as good as it, maybe one day!

Playing With Fire by Spacemen 3 (1989)
This band has inspired me a great amount, I'm huge fan of drone music and these guys no doubt took it to a whole other level with there repetitive 2 note drones and feed back, but there was something else to Spacemen 3 other than just the noise, they also had the ability to write great songs. It took me a while to pin-point down my favourite Spacemen 3 album and I came to the conclusion I dont have a favourite! However I decided that I'd talk about "Playing With Fire" as I think that all round, this is there essential album. It has everything from intense noise/feedback jams to soft acoustic songs such as 'So Hot (Wash Away All Of My Tears)'. For me the highlight of this album is easily 'Suicide'.

White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground (1968)
Another situation where its very hard to pick! The Velvet Underground are easily one of my favourite bands. They have influenced me greatly and as much as I love The Velvet Underground and Nico and their self titled album, I decided to go with White Light/White Heat. This album was far before its time, it is filled with chaos, noise and beauty. It changed music in many ways and was one of the first punk records ever. For me the stand out track would have to be the self titled opener. Whenever "White Light/White Heat" comes on blasting, I get excited.

Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by Pink Floyd (1967)
I think in terms of sheer Psychedelia this and the next album I'm going to talk about are it for me. I remember the first time I heard Matilda Mother off Pipers, I was going through Youtube videos and some how came across it, my music taste were quite different at that period of time, it was also the first time I'd heard anything from Pink Floyd pre Dark Side Of The Moon. I remember it sounded foreign to me but I was very intrigued. Then it became all I listened to, I remember going to school the next day and telling a friend how id found the kind of psychedelic music i was searching for! putting me on a path of discovering more great psychedelic music like The Grateful Dead, The 13th Floor Elevators and so much more.

The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators by The 13th Floor Elevators (1966)
From the reverbed out rockabilly guitar to the electric jug and Roky Erickson's incredible voice this is one great album! The 13th Floor Elevators style of psychedelia was quite unlike anyone else at the time. At times dark and unnerving but always with a light at the end of the psychedelic tunnel. Not only is it filled with great tunes but great lyrics as well! Their jug player Tommy Hall wrote most of the lyrics it seems. I can't think of a stand out track for this one; every tune is as good as the last.

Q. How do you feel playing live?
A: At this time since I'm recording this material by myself I am not playing it live, however I have a couple of close friends who are happy to help me play it live, so I guess it's just a matter of rehearsing and figuring out how I'll go about it. Im sure it will happen eventually.

Q. How do you describe Planets Collide sounds?
A: A mixture of Old School Dance, Space Rock, Noise and Psychedelia with a modern edge.

Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs ?
A: I have a bit of recording gear at home, so usaully it will start from coming up with a riff or a melody, then I'll record that down and work from there. I rarely start off a song with lyrics already written down but it does happen occasionally. I recorded this EP with my good friend Ben Simms from Violet Swells down in his studio in Hobart. We have known each other and played music together for nearly 10 years, so he has a pretty good knowledge of what im going for as a musician and i knew that going down to record with him would be a good move. He took on the role of engineer and also ended up taking on a bit of a producer roll as well. The original plan was to just go down and record a single over the weekend, but about 4 days beforehand Ben pitched the idea of recording a full EP instead since I had more material. The work was cut out for us since we only had 2 days to get down the whole EP but it ended up being very cruisey. We looped a lot of the drums and stuff to speed up the recording process which I think added to the sound of the EP more than anything else.

Q. Which new bands do you recommended?
A: Arrrrh, there is so much good music and plenty of talented musicians making waves out there in this day and age! I'm sure there is plenty of great artist who haven't been discovered yet to. I guess I'd recommend Jacco Gardner and his 2013 release 'Cabinet Of Curiosities'

Q. Which bands you love to made a cover version?
A: There is plenty of bands I'd love to record a cover of! I have plans to record a couple of Spacemen 3 covers, but I'd love to do a cover of something that wouldn't really fit my music. I 'd try to make it completely different to the original so it would work. Something vintage like "I Only Have Eyes for You," by The Flamingos would be great to do that kind of thing with!

Q. Whats the plans for the future..
Well the my first plan is to get this EP released! At this time its still being mixed and ready for mastering, but it should be released within a months time. Future plans are to write and record another EP/Album by the end of the year, I'd also like to get a band rolling so I can play live and save up a bit of money so I can buy some more recording gear, among other things.

Q. Any parting words?
A: First off thanks for taking the time to read this interview. This is all new to me so I'm very appreciative of the support I'm receiving. I thought I'd leave you with a quote I like from Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 "Basically, one chords best, two chords cool, three chords ok, four chords average". Thanks for reading.
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Thanks Stephen Dunham.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Planets-Collide
https://soundcloud.com/the-planets-collide
http://theplanetscollide.bandcamp.com/releases

Behind Us Now by Skylight - An Interview with Perry Pelonero & Brent Martino

A era clássca do shoegazer trouxe-nos inumeros clássicos MBV, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Ride, Swervedriver, enfim os top of the tops daquela epoca, porém o submundo dos bons sons também esta completamente recheado de pequenas obscuridades tão maravilhosas como as principais, é o caso do Skylight, pequeno combo noise shoegazer, imerso sob microfonias, loops, eletronices caoticos, dream pop, ou seja todos os elementos fundamentais para se criar obras primas do genero. 1991 foi o ano que Perry Peloreno colocou suas excentricidades em forma musical, inumeras formações e singles, eps, passaram-se na tumultuada trajetoria do Skylight, que contou ate seus ultimos devaneios com o proprio Perry em companhia de Brent Martino e ja em seu final com Kim Wesh, após o Skylight a junção de Perry e Kim transformou-se em bliss.city.eat grandiosa banda dream/shoegazer/electro/noise nos moldes de SVI e mais ainda Morpheme e a junção com Dean Garcia ex Curve e atual SPC Eco junto com Perry e Kim, sem perder o folego, vamos a entrevista historica de Perry e Brent para o TBTCI explicando definitivamente o porque o Skylight tem uma cultuada gama de seguidores no qual eu me incluo, além de causos de Perry com Swervedriver, MBV, Mercury Rev e outros masters da epoca, desde já entrevista que virara cult aqui TBTCI.

***** Interview with Perry Pelonero (Skylight/bliss.city.eat/Morpheme & Brent Martino (Skylight/ The Scarlet Mouning *****

Q. About the early years of Skylight, tell us about the beginning, when did the band starts?
Perry: Some mixed up memories.

The band started around 1991 when i met Mike Bunnell through some friends. I had just moved to the Boston area after leaving New York City. In NYC i was heavily involved in the punk rock hardcore scene and by the late 80s, i was sick of it.. At first me and Mike started making noise tracks with a sampler and whatever else we had laying around. We eventually shared an apartment together and we used to record via a radio shack mixer into a cassette player. It was fucking weird, but it worked well. Mike was one of the first peoplei knew to make loops with a guitar i think... Using an Alesis sampler. We started listening to music coming out of the UK that i guess was called shoegaze? We had already been heavily influenced by bands from the UK .. Echo and the bunnymen, the cure etc... But this stuff was different. We put a band together and brought some different people in and got a manager who in the end fucked us pretty hard after moving to NYC and vanishing. He even stole our original recordings. His name was Howard... And i would love to kick his fucking ass inside out to this day. We recorded a demo with him not long after meeting him. Mike had this great idea of running his guitar through this old yamaha noise keyboard synth after i found we could input the guitar with it... It gave us that string effect for the original As you leave recording. Amazing stuff it was for us. After recording the first demo, we added two new members to the band. A friend of ours Marie played guitar along with Mike, and a drummer. We practiced in the basement of this house we were all living in. We had no money at all, and had to fill our oil furnace with diesel fuel because we could not afford oil. We had a house full of cats as well, because they kept having kittens... We had one cat that used to jump off the roof of the house into a flower pot. People would come over just to see it.

Really it was kind of fucked up. Everybody was fucking everybody, strange people showing up to our house, people getting piercings in fucked up places on their bodies... Everybody in the house got crabs at one point because somebody had dropped some in our house. Me and Mike made up strange games to play during the day to keep us busy. Like tossing super balls in cans. We had a car that would not start unless one of us pushed it down a hill. So every place we went we had to park on a hill. We lived next door to this asshole with a ham radio and giant fucking antenna. He use to come through on all of our recordings the signal was so strong. We asked him to stop but he never did. Instead he would talk about us on his radio and we would hear him. We tried calling the FCC but that failed. So one day we cut and spliced a bunch of his words that we had recorded on a tape. We arranged the words so he would call himself an asshole. Making him say he ate his own shit and stuff. Really funny things... But some drums and keys behind it... We then made a tape and put it on his front door and rain his doorbell. He was so so mad. He even called our landlord... But to us it was funny. We laughed for days about it. He never turned his fucking radio down though.

Before our first show we really wanted video playing behind us so we came up with some cool ideas. We went to the library and rented a film about nature. Flowers, birds etc... We then took a camera and took all sorts of weird photos. Like close ups of wonder bread bags and windows etc. We turned those photos into slides. And ran the slides over the nature film which gave this really cool effect. It really went well with our live show actually. Trippy. Our friend had made a video of it at one point, but it’s long gone now. Kind of sad, because i would give anything to see it again.

After going through rehearsals for our first live show we were ready. Our friend Eric booked us at a club that had just opened. The day of the show came, and the place was packed with people. I think we were a bit shocked. It was time to hit the stage and when we did it all started. First off, our drummer straight off played everything the wrong way. We had been practicing with him for weeks. Complete fuck up. I still say he was nervous and had never played a live show. After suffering through a few songs with him, i got really pissed off and threw my bass on the ground... I came back a minute later and we just started making NON stop noise. For at least 15 minutes. Mind you, this was before MBV had ever made it to the USA . Although i cannot confirm that. I think we had heard stories of them doing the noise bliss though. At this point the crowd we brought in started clearing out. Funny to look back on actually. By the end of the show, our drummer took off. According to Brent a friend who joined Skylight later on, i had been threatening to kill the drummer and he was scared shitless. We fired him after that show and went back to using two different drum machines. We continued to record and play various shows in our living room and other places.Then one day our manager called and said he was leaving and moving to NYC. At this point we thought what do we have to lose by doing the same?? I contacted my sister who was living just over the bridge from NYC in NJ and asked her if we could come down and stay with her for a short time. So we had a huge yard sale and made money. Packed up all our shit. Rented a U haul and drove to NJ. We arrived at my sister’s house in NJ. Not long before we arrived, her neighbor had just blown his heart up by swallowing a couple of 8 balls of cocaine because the cops had pulled him over in the driveway. My sister was visibly upset but also acting really weird about it. I thought to myself holy shit what are we doing here!! Come to find out she was moving because she had lost her house due to a serious drug issue she had so she helped us all find a new place to live which ended up being on top of a strip club in the worst neighborhood in Paterson NJ. It was horrible. Every night the song I LIKE BIG BUTTS would blast through the floors of our apartment. The club was disgusting. Hookers all over the neighborhood tons of crack being sold. My sister had all sorts of weird people coming in and out of the apartment. One of them was this dude who told us a story about his mother making somebody float out from underneath her bed one night. And when we tried to walk away from him, he pulled out a gun and told us to stay. Yeah, it was that fucked up. During this time our manager had vanished into thin air. We tried calling him and he never returned calls. We rented rehearsal time in Hoboken and rehearsed whenever we could. We had no money what so ever, and had to take jobs for a towing service that my sister’s boyfriend at the time owned. We stayed in the area as long as we could. Shows, hanging out at a friend’s record store and making music whenever we could. We saw a lot of cool shows in New York City around that time. And really that time period was just as electric for music as it was in the 80s. Timeless.Eventually after some of us going through some serious drug problems, we packed the band up and moved back to the Boston area. Looking back on this though, we really had a ton of fun as well. I mean we were all about the music, and played whenever we could. The noise man.. the noise man..

Once we got back, we had no idea what to do honestly. We spent a short time doing whatever we could. Until one day Mike just up and left for college. This was around the same time the Brent joined the band actually. I have always been on the same page with Brent musically. All of these years went by and when we started writing together again, it was magic. I would bet it will always be like that... Aside from Brent writing his side of things here, i emailed him the other day and asked him to share some memories of that time period and this is what he sent me. Hilarious to read this because i forgot about most of it! In 1993 Brent said this.

Brent: I came to be in skylght in the spring of 1993 when the band was basically Mike and Perry, I had known Perry for a couple of years through a friend I was in another band with. Shortly after joining Mike left and we became Bloome, we added another guitar player (Sean) and a drummer (Rick), I think mostly because I love to use live drums. Perry typically had bad luck with drummers so we had been using a drum machine but their is just something about a live drummer that pulls it all together for me. We recorded an unfinished 4 song demo and played live once, then things fell apart and we went our separate ways. Perry continued on with other versions of Skylight over the years. Perry and I reconnected through myspace in 2007 after close to 12 years and within a couple of weeks we were trading tracks online and Skylight was once again reborn, soon after we added Pete Kontos on Guitar and Kim Welsh on Vocals


Q. What are the bands influences?
Perry: It is impossible for me to sum up influences. Even in the early 90s i was listening to tons of classic rock. I believe we did a sabbath cover once during rehearsals. All music is an influence to me really... I suppose everything!

Brent: All the usual suspects MBV, Slowdive, Boo Radleys, Swervdriver, all of those late 80's early 90's bands. I think the thing that has always made skylight special is that in addition to our shared shoegaze influences we also all had a very diverse set of other influences and though we were a "Shoegaze" band we weren't afraid to draw on bands outside that genre. For me that is bands like Jane's Addiction, The Sisters of Mercy, Prince, Fields of the Nephilim, and especially The Cure.

Q. Tell us about the Skylight gigs, how is it?
Perry: When we did play it was awesome really. Besides out first show with the idiotic drummer. Once we got the drum machines settled it was cool... We used a boss DR Rhythm and slaved an Alesis via midi.. We tried a cassette once but that failed. We were all about the noise though. Whenever we had a chance we would just make tons of noise. Mike and I would always add extra people when we could but that never really worked out so well. To be honest, Marie was the best we ever had. We taught her all the guitar parts she needed to know. And she would just come out and play. She was into the noise man. She was very talented. Nobody has a clue what ever happened to her actually. I was in touch with her years ago, but her fuck nut boyfriend intercepted emails and said nobody was allowed to email her anymore. Live she was always good... It was about fun for us though. Making noise was all we wanted to do. And that is exactly what we did every time we played. Some loved it, most hated it. Which is exactly what we wanted.

Brent: Because Perry and Kim are in Chicago and Pete and I are in Boston we have essentially been a virtual band for the last few years. We had talked about going out there or them coming here to do a show but life gets in the way and so far it hasn't happened. Back in the day whether writing or recording Perry and I have always been on the same page musically, we have some kind of musical telepathy.


Q. What´s your favourite Skylight song, why?
Perry: As You Leave and Winter Lights. As you leave because it was one of the first that me and Mike ever wrote together. And Winter Lights because it was the first Kim wrote after joining Skylight. Those words have special meaning.

Brent: It's a tie between Winter Lights and Tigerlily. Winter lights because it was the first thing Perry and I wrote together after not talking in over 12 years and tigerlily because I love the atmosphere it creates.

Q. Made a list of your top five albums from all time
Perry: No fucking way. You and i both now that is totally impossible J As much as i would love to do that.. How about anything Led Zeppelin did? Or Killing Joke?? Or T Rex. Or The Cars.

Brent: As I said I have a wide range of influences but I will narrow it down to 5. If you asked me again tomorrow it would probably change. These are 5 that I love and had the most influence on my playing over the years.

The Cure, Disintegration
The Sisters of Mercy, First and Last And Always
Slowdive, Souvlaki
Jane's Addiction, Nothings Shocking
Asobi Seksu, Citrus



Q. Skylight emerge during the classic era of Shoegazer, do you have some histories with bands like MBV, Slowdive, etc…
Brent: Perry has a lot more other band stories he was always more outgoing then me and always knew everyone. The one story I have was spending an evening drinking with Swervedriver at the Rat Skellar in Boston. Perry is friends with them and we had gone down to see their show with the Smashing pumpkins but due to a series of crazy mishaps the show was cancelled. So instead we drank, talked about our mutual love of Alice Cooper and their bass player gave me some great relationship advice, LOL.

Perry: We were lucky in that sense. Wet met Swervedriver early on and i became friends with Adam.... What a wonderful person he is really. I actually love his solo records so much maybe more so than the swervedriver records. Although they both are different to me. I was going to play with him a couple of years ago when his bass player broke his ankle or something. In the end the Churchs keyboard player filled in which was good because i had two days to learn the songs and one of those days we had a power failure at our house.

I spent a lot of time with swervies in the 90s. For various reasons and have some funny stories about being on tour with them. One of them was the great stolen camera incidentJ.. A good friend Claire was with us on tour in 94 and we were in Rhode Island. Swerves had a merch dude Matt. He was incredibly funny this guy. So one night Claire went off some place and Matt grabbed me with a sharpie in hand, and Claires camera. She had left it with Matt to watch. So Matt takes me outside and said this. You take this sharpie, i will pull down my pants and you write HELLO CLAIRE on my ass. Take a picture of it. So Matt rips down his pants, i write HELLO CLAIRE as big as i could, and i took a picture. After the tour back in England, she got the photos developed and we were in Swervies managers office and Claire comes in and said MY PARENTS almost saw this!! Or maybe they did. I cannot remember. It was a classic moment though.

The great thing about the folks in Swervedriver is they were just cool people to hang out with. Never any bullshit with them. The music they made was just always there man. Mezcal Head being one of the best rock records done in the 90s in my opinion. An album that still stands up and can be listened to over and over.

We spent a lot of time with MBV and Mercury Rev as well. Rev were really cool and MBV smoked a shit ton of weed man. One joint would go out and another would just be passed around. Debbie is/was the best person in that band really. She was incredibly sweet and spent a lot of time talking with us in Canada one time. I remember bringing Skylight demos to them as well.

It was funny seeing MBV with DINO JR when we did, because Dino Jr just blew them off the stage. I was always convinced that Kevin Shields made all that noise knowing full well they did not even compare to DINO JR live. When MBV did the reunion i had NO interest in seeing them. I actually agree with what Alan McGee said about loveless which was basically that he cannot stand to even listen to it. And truthfully i feel the same way. One note from loveless and i am ready to vomit. I can listen to the early Eps though. Without the vomit . Some records from back then stand the test of time. That is not one of them in my opinion. Not much different from how i feel about slowdive actually. GAK.. I think its cool Kevin went on to do things with Primal Scream though. I love Primal Scream. We met Bobby and the rest once when they played with Depeche Mode i think it was. He could hardly stand up. He was wobbling back and forth but incredibly nice. And they were almost always good live when we saw them. We have a number stories from back then. Maybe we should write a book or something.

Oh, i almost forgot about Brad and the Medicine folks! Awesome people and fun to watch live!!! As i said i should write a book!!!!!!

Q. Why Skylight RIP?
Brent: Though at the moment Perry would likely disagree I would never call it dead, maybe in a state of suspended animation. Skylight has a way of popping back up when we least expect it. At the moment though perry is busy with his other bands, Bliss City East and Morpheme and Pete and I have a new band called This Scarlet Mourning (along with Don Barry on Bass and Katie Bunting on vocals). We are planning to hit the studio in July for a new single called Stupid World. As for Skylight you never know it's only ever one Facebook message from Perry away from waking up, we may be in an old age home when it happens but who knows "elderly gaze" might catch on!

Perry: Skylight has been following me on and off for a long time. I appreciate people remembering the band, asking us to do shows as well. But i kind of felt with Brent doing his own band out east now, and me and Kim doing bliss.city.east and morpheme with Dean i just cannot see time doing anything else. I am not saying its over completely. I mean, we were asked to do a show in Chicago as a reunion kind of thing, but really it would only be me as an original member. I am not saying NO but i am also not saying YES. Depends on my mood.

Q. About bliss.city.east, when the band starts?
Perry: Bliss started a couple of years ago with Kim Welsh my girlfriend and baby Mama We did it so we could play live shows mainly. But as it turns out, we just love making music together. We spend an incredible amount of time together. We have a studio in our house, so we record whenever we feel the need. Its awesome actually. I could not ask for anything more with Kim. She is perfect. We went through some other members during this time. None of them really worked out until Eric D’Asto joined the band, who has also been PERFECT. He just adds to everything we do and makes it perfect always.

We had another dude who was in the band for a short time but was a horrible musician. When we listen back to his tracks on our recordings now, its just awful. He has also been stalking us via the net for a couple of years now. Non stop. Put our music up on his site as well and its blatantly obvious its me playing guitar. He is a real sick fucker actually. He even sent threatening emails about shooting us and stuff. It’s been taken care of, but you really need to watch out who you invite in the band these days!! bliss started off with Gail and Reuben in the band. Two people that helped out so much and did a ton. We see Reuben all the time but Gail just kind of vanished a year or so ago.

I love bliss though. Our live shows are always shitty, but we have fun doing what we do and that is all that matters to us. It’s perfect.

Q. How you define bliss.city.east sounds?
Perry: I have NO idea. Its just whatever comes out of us at the time. Black and Blue was our tribute to The Cars. If that helps at all. I suppose maybe Dream pop??? I hate genres even though i know they are needed in some way. So yeah, Dream pop.

Q. Tell us about the process of recording the songs...
Perry: It’s been tough with no drummer i can tell you that much. If we had a drummer things would be different. But i have BAD drummer luck. I cannot stand most of them. They either cannot keep up with us, or are just flat out fucking weird. So i gave up on finding one. I do most of the programming of drums myself here at our studio. Most of the time it would be writing the base of the song and then have Kim and Eric come in behind me and add parts. This year though, we have been running drum tracks and all writing together. This is something i truly love and plan to continue. We have a ton of songs, none of them are ready. We are in no hurry to release anything.

Q. The split with Vigulgi OoyoO is a masterpiece to me, do you agree?
Perry: A masterpiece? I don’t know about that!! But thank you!!! We appreciate it! Vidulgi had some great tracks on that album. So did we actually .Nothing ever came of that record. We had a label in England who supposed to release it on vinyl and CD but they ended up just fucking us over completely. Honestly, i am kind of disgusted the way the whole thing was done in the end. Music was great on it though...

Q. What do you think about the classic Shoegaze era?
Perry: It was electric. The shows, the people most of the bands. We were lucky to be front and center when it all went down. I miss that time and i miss a lot of the bands as well.

Q. Which bands would you like to do a cover version of?
Perry: The only cover song we would ever do would be something from The Cars J. we are working on our version of moving in stereo. Although, i would love to cover Higher than the sun by Primal Scream.

Q. Which new bands would you recommend?
Perry: Screen Vinyl Image for sure. Jake and Kim rule and put on one of the greatest live shows. Love Culture from Ohio. Great people and a good band. Tom Lugo and Stellarscope! Plus his label Patetico!!! Music for headphones as well!!! Man the list goes on, and i am sure i am missing some.BLOODY KNIVES. !! Great people and fun to play a show with... Presents for Sally as well. Matt Etherton is a really great person. I heard this band SPC ECO was good. Try them out. So many awesome people involved in this scene these days though. The folks from when the sun hits, Paul Lopez who runs the shoegaze collective. Ambient Airwaves, all of these people working hard to support the bands. My apologies to bands i missed. If you know me well, then you will understand I have a hard enough time remembering my name!!!

Q. About Morpheme, what´s the concept of the band and how´s working with Dean Garcia?
Perry: AS long i do not have to hear THE C WORD ( Curve ).. Don’t get me wrong, Curve did some great things no doubt!! Seriously though...Working with Dean is awesome. We are good friends besides. We have a really cool chemistry between us in music and friendship.. It’s like we read each other’s minds when it comes to music as well.So much has changed in the music business. So its much different than either one of us are used to dealing with. Honestly, we should have been doing this in the 90s!! But its just perfect writing with him. We never really had a concept. Although Kim has been getting a bit political with her lyrics. We all just write what we feel. I pop it off to Dean, he sends it back. Kim adds her lovely voice to it and Bobs Yer Uncle Kim has been doing our videos as well. The video for stratosphere was banned from facebook! Rock on...

Q. What the plans for the future?
Perry: Finish the Morpheme record with Dean and Kim. Finish the bliss album with Kim and Eric. Raise my beautiful daughter. And that is about it.

Q. Any parting words?
Perry: Yeah. I want to take a moment to thank all the people out there supporting all of our bands. Buying our music. Stealing our music whatever. You guys are all awesome. In Chicago i wanted to take a moment to thank Arunas from Darkroom and DJ Scarylady Sarah, William Faith and Philly Peroxide for putting on a great two day festival of bands last month. It was awesome. They have a once a month shoegaze thing here in Chicago at Late bar called Shimmer. So if you are in Chicago, you should go to this.!!! Joey Levenson from SPC ECO for always adding his bits to bliss music. Again i am sure that i am missing people i should be thanking. I am a scatter brain!!!

And finally thank YOU for doing this interview and waiting for me to finish it!!!

Pardon all my jumbled words and stories as well!!

Peace
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Thanks Perry and Brent

http://skylight91.bandcamp.com/album/behind-us-now

Brighter Day with Coconut Cluster - An Interview

Matthieu Connen e Gaël Maffre formam o duo francês Coconut Cluster.

Os caras debutaram no final do ano passado com o EP "Brighter Day", onde cheguei a ler algumas resenhas citando o post rock como uma tendência da banda, o que definitivamente é isso que acontece na estreia dos caras, apenas na derradeira "The Strange" que fecha o disco, nas demais, pelo contrário, ao invés de crescendos matemáticos e momentos de calmaria, o que se escuta em "Brighter Day" é um mix de pós punk com pequenas doses de shoegaze sendo que a condução de tudo isso tem na eletrônica a sua coluna vertebral sonora, dando um ar de trip hop que torna-se inegável principalmente na hipnótica "The Terrifying".

Uma estreia densa e principalmente intensa do Coconut Cluster que os coloca como uma das grandes promessas desse 2017.

***** Interview with Coconut Cluster *****

Q. When did Coconut Cluster start? Tell us about the history…
Gaël : Matthieu and I have been playing music together for about ten years. We started by producing downtempo tracks in a project called 175 Workshop, we did some live performances, then we went our own separate ways. He played in rock bands for a few years and I was involved in various projects ranging from IDM to indie folk.

A year ago he came to me with a few tracks laying the foundation of Coconut Cluster. He had been working alone for several months and felt like he was going in circles, that something was missing. He asked me for advices at first, then for some help to finish producing the tracks. I brought voices and basses to some of them.

Matthieu : We both are studio freaks, so we spent a rather insane amount of time searching for the right colors, the right sound-design.

(And, as you might suspect, we spent even more time searching for a band's name)

The interesting thing is that we really feel that Coconut Cluster, while being an entirely new project, reflects the musical identity we've been forging through various projects over the past decade. Some kind of synthesis, in a way.
So I guess we can say that it all started about 10 years ago.

Q: Who are your influences?
Hard to say, we listen to a lot of different things. We really were into garage rock and Seattle rock when we were teens, even if it does not exactly sound like it when you listen to "Brighter Day".

For this project I'd say that the most obvious influences may be Radiohead, Portishead, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Do Make Say Think... Also some IDM artists such as Telephon Tel Aviv or Amon Tobin.

The less obvious would be The Cinematic Orchestra, Ibrahim Maalouf, Songs : Ohia, Tom Waits, ...

Q. Make a list of 5 albums of all time…
-"Kid A" by Radiohead
-"F# A# (Infinity)" by Godspeed You ! Black Emperor
-"Roseland NYC" by Portishead
-"To Bring You My Love" by PJ Harvey
-"Ghost Tropic" by Songs : Ohia

Q. How do you feel playing live?
We've been working on a live set since December : this is going to be... Different. Grittier, darker, a little more in-your-face while retaining some very cinematic moments... We're really having a great time working on it, being back on stage together is going to be so good.

Q. How do you describe Coconut Cluster sounds?
Surprisingly enough, I don't think we ever tried to describe our sounds. I mean, we never felt the need to put words on it. Usually, we simply call Coconut Cluster our "rock project".

Anyway, we don't really like guidelines when it comes to music (or, for that matter, any other form of creation), we don't want to influence the way people will listen to "Brighter Day".

Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs ?
Gaël: Matthieu is at the origin of Coconut Cluster's identity, so he lays down ideas and pre-produces tracks, we listen to them together and pick up the most interesting ones, or at least the ones we find to be the most coherent with the project as a whole. At that point most of those pre-productions are merely loops with a strong emphasis on sound-design. We both record at home, so he gives me multitrack sessions and I record voices and/or bass lines, editing the song structures in the meantime. I send him back the sessions with the newly recorded parts and he finalizes the tracks.

Matthieu : It's all very easy, we know each other very well. I know what kind of tracks are going to inspire Gaël and he knows what to add to them to convince me. Once the production phase is over, I mix the tracks at home and finally we have them mastered at a dedicated studio.

It's really important for us to record, produce and mix our music ourselves. It has to sound exactly the way we want it to.

Q. Which new bands do you recommend ?
New bands ? There are those British guys, I love them, they sound amazing... They're called "The Who".

No, seriously, we just try to discover interesting artists, new or old is not a criteria.

In that regard, we would recommend to follow labels such as Constellation Records or Secretly Canadian. They're actually pretty old labels that keep presenting new artists and projects that truly are fantastic.

Q: Which band would you love to made a cover version of ?
Tom Jones, definitely.

Q: What are your plans for the future?
To get rich, famous and fat, then move to Acapulco and spend the rest of our days drinking tequilas with Elvis and Jim Morrison (You do know that their death was a lie and that they've been living in Acapulco since the 70's, right ?).

Oh yeah, incidentally, we are also working on a 2nd EP for Q3 2017 and we have some video contents on their way as well. All this, of course, in order play live as much as possible !

Q: Any parting words ?
Thanks for the interview, we hope to see you soon on stage.
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Thanks

https://coconutcluster.bandcamp.com/album/brighter-day

Catch the Breeze with A Shoreline Dream - An Interview

Denver, Colorado é o lar do cultuado A Shoreline Dream mesmo refutando a ideia do shoegazer os americanos Ryan, vocais, guitarras e teclados, Erik, guitarras, Enoc baixo e Jennifer bateria, evocam as as mais classicas caracteristicas do shoegazer com albuns absolutamente intrigantes e densos, Avoiding the Consequences e Recolletctions of Memory fora o soberdo EP Coastal, por vezes cristalinas e viajantes camadas de guitarras e drones repetitidos, por outras tensas e densas sequencias em crescendo em altos decibeis fazem do mundo dos sonhos do A Shoreline Dream tornar-se extremamente peculiar e atrativo. Aproveitando o lançamento de Losing Them All To this Time o novissimo album dos caras o TBTCI mais do que depressa apresenta a todos o mundo particular dos sonhos deste prediletissimo da casa.

***** Interview with A Shoreline Dream *****

Q. When did A Shorilne Dream starts, tell us about the history...

A. A Shoreline Dream began back in 2005, with the first album being released in 2005. It started with a member of my previous band, Drop The Fear, and was quite literally a sound we had been striving to try out for many years. Something lush, something dark, and something that had an endless space to fill. We began with a remix we were working on titled "motherly advice". At the time it was just the two of us, but as we found the tone we were hoping to achieve, we realized something was missing. That being more instrumentation, and a live feel, since it originated as an electronic oriented project. I got ahold of a member of another project I was in for many years called Pure Drama, and soon we found ourselves working with Erik Jeffries, and Enoc Torraca, who was a fan of Drop the Fear. This began a summer of live experimentation in my home studio, and after some stoney sessions, we realized we had all stumbled upon a sound we all loved. Something bigger than we ever imagined. The production really brought it all to life, and soon thereafter we felt so confident in what we had, that I took a loan out, and we started our own label, latenight weeknight records. We figured it wasn't really worth shopping our disc around to countless labels, only to become aggravated in a market that was struggling to survive. We just wanted people to hear what we had created, and we wanted to remove the step of finding an investor. We invested in ourselves, and still do to this day. We've made some amazing alliances through it all, and we've released nine discs thus far through the label, with this new album "losing them all to this time" being the third full length album for a shoreline dream.

Q: Who are your influences?

A. This is a great question, as to be totally honest, when we first started this up, my biggest influence, and one which probably influenced our whole production style more than any other was Dead Can Dance. Not all of their work has appealed to me, but their first disc is still to this day one of my all time favorites. The spacial qualities, and the overall tonality revolutionized the goth genre, while not being goth. It was something entirely new. It was something that still hasn't been recreated to this day, and I love it. That along with The Smashing Pumpkins, Tori Amos, Depeche Mode and even bands as obscure and different as Morgoth and Cynic, all lead to the influences that you hear in our music.

Q. Made a list of 5 albuns of all time…
A. Wow, this one is difficult, but I'll try. This list could change tomorrow ;)

5. Depeche Mode - Violator
4. Type O Negative - October Rust
3. Engineers - Engineers
2. Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden
1. Dead Can Dance - Dead Can Dance

Q. How do you feel playing alive?

A. Playing live is something I can't explain. Everytime it happens I can't remember. It goes by so fast. It's such a huge release of emotion and of frustrations. It's amazing. I couldn't live without it. It's a life force all within itself. When we played with Chapterhouse last fall I had a somehwat holy experience, and I'm not even religious. I don't know how I could ever do another gig as amazing as that one. I found myself falling on the floor with my guitar in hand on numerous occasions.

Q. How do you describe A Shoreline Dream sounds?
A. Our sounds are strange. I always like the melodipsych term. Someone called us that once and we always go by it. Obscure enough without sounding pretentious. I personally think we sound like a band playing at the bottom of a well. The vocals are layered, and the tones all play out handing off to one another. We're like a train passing by at 100 miles per hour.

Q: Tell us about the process of recording the albuns, What´s the difference between them?A. All of our material has primarily happened in a similar way. We have a permanent setup at my studio where we literally just jam away in, recording everything that happens. Sometimes we'll come back after one session and realize we have a song done. Other times we might find parts that we dig, and we'll expand on them. It totally depends on our moods, the time of year, and the sound quality of the room at the time. Ona few occassions, such as last year, songs have come together outside of the studio. I travelled to London and wrote a track with Ulrich Schnauss in his studio. It's good to mix it up. Sometimes the vibe of the city comes through in the power of the song. On this new album we literally had songs that happened in one take, and some which we worked on for months and months.

Q. What´s represents the shoegazer classic era to the band?
A. I still don't entirely understand what shoegazer really means, or what the sound really is when someone says it. I've never really considered ourselves a shoegazer band. I don't know what the hell we are really. But if someone says we are playing classic shoegaze, and they like that way of describing us, I'm all for it. I think all music is really up to interpretation. Some might say we're progressive. Some might say we're goth, while many might consider us shoegaze. It doesn't really matter what you call us, as long as you're listening ;)

Q. Which new bands do you recommended?
A. So many great acts out there. I'd say Engineers for sure if you haven't heard of them already. Digging Serena-Maneesh as well. Jaga Jazzist is outstanding. A few bands from our hometown also shine quite brightly, such as Moonspeed and Hearts in Space. Of course, as a self plug I must also mention Brim Liski. It's a side project of mine with another artist in the Denver area named Cacheflowe. Even though it's self produced, I've been listening to it quite often.... Hope others do as well!

Q: Which bands you love to made a cover version?
A. We recently did our first cover, that being "the chain" by Fleetwood Mac. Had a great time with that one. Love taking older songs and giving the beef in production value.

Q: What´s the plans for future....
A. We're looking to play out again once the dust settles, and do a US West Coast tour, or possibly hit up the East Coast as well. We'd love to get out of our country and do some gigs around the world as well. One step at a time...

Q: Any parting words?
A. Please people, keep buying music. I know it's easy to steal, and it doesn't seem wrong, but it is. Lotsa hungry, talented musicians out there, and they depend on you to help keep them going. It's damn near impossible to survive off of music these days, and I blame it all on the internet.
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Thanks Ryan!!

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