Movietone - [self-titled] (1995)
I only managed to delve into this Bristol indie band’s catalogue late last year, but they’ve quickly become one of my favourite bands of all time. Though I’m more partial to 1997’s Day and Night which I listened to a lot last year, I was also spellbound by their self-titled record when I came across it this year. It’s a lot rawer and unpolished, of course, as their later records get less indie rock and more chamber music and jazz, but it has this really earthen and bare touch to it that I’m currently smitten with.
Movietone was a collective that formed in the early 1990s that comprised lots of members from the Bristol post-rock and indie rock scenes that would go on to form bands of their own - Flying Saucer Attack, Crescent, The Third Eye Foundation, etc. Vocalists Kate Wright and Rachel Coe trade places in delivering hushed and poetic vocals over steady and slowly progressing music, and so you can kind of give each track its own chance to bloom into something beautiful.
My favourite songs Heatwave Pavement and Green Ray are stacked back-to-back, and they make up a stunning mix of tender sensitivity and poetic lyrics (especially paired with the weeping strings in the latter). The band doesn’t hesitate to rely on noise and dissonance either (see the free-jazz in Orange Zero or the guitars drenched in fuzz on the opening Chance is Her Opera) but the album isn’t trying to push the listener away or turn them off. It’s incredibly enchanting and lulls you into gazing across its world, one where the pieces are shaped into imperfect buildings but the view remains utterly magical.
It’s borderline suburban folk music: where the tales are thoroughly combed through and composed but the nature, people and stories are all real, grounded, and wonderful to listen to.
Listen here.
Brendan Eder Ensemble - Cape Cod Cottage (2021)
This album was such a surprise find, and I’m so happy I heard it. Cape Cod Cottage is pitched not as the second full-length from the L.A.-based Brendan Eder Ensemble, but as a set of meditations from the never-before-found “Edward Blankman”, a retired dentist mourning the loss of his wife in 1970.
Of course, this story is pseudonymous (the album’s original cover art even states Blankman’s name on the title) but there’s a lot of real imagination and emotion in the album.
The grief present on some songs here (note the titular “Natalie”) channels Eder’s own, and the result is a full ensemble of musicians performing a mixture between romantic jazz-classical and melancholic ambient. The drumming on this album is marvellous (credited to Christian Euman) but my favourite cut, Theme, somehow gets away with relying on none of it. It sounds like a tender and still piece of a video game OST, and I cannot stop replaying it.
This whole album really feels like something that would soundtrack a peaceful summer night and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Listen here.
Alison’s Halo - Eyedazzler (1997)
Shoegaze is a genre that I was heavy into when I was younger, but that I don’t keep up with nowadays. I love a lot of bands that play twists on the style (like Sweet Trip or Swirlies, who fuse the sound with electronica and punky indie rock, respectively) but I knew I would love the only album from this Tempe, AZ group the moment I heard Raindrop somewhere.
This album rules, and though you don’t typically tend to describe shoegaze albums this way, after spinning this one back-to-forth all across the year I think I can explain why. It puts hooks and pop structures first and so it’s incredibly catchy the entire way through, but it never ceases to slow down and be heavenly at times too. (see: Leech, Melt)
It kind of balances noise pop bangers (see my album of the decade, Alvvays’s 2022 release Blue Rev) with soothing and graceful dream pop, and so it’s hard not to love it. It’s also not obviously borrowing from a My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive-esque formula; I dare say this album actually channels The Cure quite hard. When I listen to the rushed, energetic parts on Chime I feel like I’m listening to a blown out version of something like In Between Days, and I can’t really explain the feeling that well, but needless to say it’s infectious.
Eyedazzler is a collection of songs that span the band’s run from 1992 to 1996, and the versions you’ll hear on streaming come back-loaded with a bunch of live versions and front- ended by the band’s debut 7” featuring Dozen and Calendar. Honestly, this is probably the best way to experience the album - it kind of works wonderfully as a compilation with sequencing kept in mind. Go in to hear something slightly strange and a twist on sounds that many bands have tried before, and you’ll find an album that has practically perfected all of them.
Besides my favourite album of all time, Glitter by the Japanese band Pasteboard, I don’t think I’ve found another album in this style that has stuck with me more.
Listen here.