Monday, March 19, 2007

Amiga Landscape Generation High

Sunny Day In Glasgow - Things Only I Can See

Black Tamborine - For Ex-Lovers Only

I love shoegaze and I love twee. I love twee more, but I fluctuate. Right now I think the best thing is a combination. These two bands both combine shoegaze and twee to varying degrees and effects and it works so well. A Sunny Day in Glasgow are the newest of the two (though they may not sound it) and elsewhere on their new album, Scribble Mural Comic Journal, you'll find beats, sometimes rising atop all the floaty distortion and noise. It soars, and even if they're playing with their faces to their pedals, their sound aims to the sky. I think this is why they manage to sound twee; it sounds flighty, sensitive. I'd heard about this band a a while ago but an inclusion in Pitchfork's (yeah, yeah) 'Recommended' section sealed the deal. It's really terrific and sometimes reminds me of Enya and I love Enya as well.
A Sunny Day In Glasgow, here pictured in A Dark Nightclub in New York.

Black Tambourine are old and their sound aims inwards; it's compacted and good for rainy days, the indoors. They only ever released one album. It's called Complete Recordings. The biggest twee aspect is probably the weak(ish) voice, here. A sensitivity, too, lyrically and aesthetically. Shoegaze has always been about beauty, I think. And I suppose Kevin Shields was never too shy about emotion, even behind all those pedals and noise.

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