This is it! This is either/or’s 1000th post! To celebrate, I’ve gone ahead and tidied up the place: I’ve put all the cushions back in place and vacuumed. It scrubs up well, doesn’t it?

Like this blog, Slowdive went 22 years between releases but have come back with a sumptuous batch of shoegazing cookies for us to munch on. Richly distorted guitars whirl around dreamy, almost incomprehensible vocals, all driven forward at a rather pounding pace. It is well and truly up my proverbial alley, and possibly yours too?

If yesterday’s song was the soundtrack for a grown-up romance (no, not the smutty kind), then perhaps this is the version for all you young whippersnappers out there. With your skinny jeans and odd haircuts. Two things I totally don’t have.

Anyway, the Savoys come from the musically rich country that is Canada with a soothing, dreamy spot of shoegazing. Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you will know I am partial to a good dose of shoegazing every now and then (I mean, it has its own tag on this site). To that end, this hits the spot quite swimmingly. So pardon me while I go drift away!

You know what sucks? Illness. It is just the worst! You know what doesn’t suck? Australian rock from the 80s. Nosiree. Coincidently, that is what I bring to you, my adoring audience, today!

If Bob Dylan ever decided to delve into the waters of shoegazing and punk (and he may have, considering I’m not particularly familiar with his extended back catalogue), then it may have sounded a bit like Died Pretty. At the very least, the lead singer, Brett Myers sounds a bit like a grungy version of Dylan. Music wise, it’s punk-influenced rock with a hint of shoegazing, and as we all know, there is no part of that sentence I don’t agree with. You have done me proud, Australian rock scene in the 80s!

It makes me so darn happy that shoegazing and related genres are still kicking around beyond their short-lived hey-day back in the 90s. I wasn’t musically conscious for most of the 90s, so I missed out on all of it! Here is Wry Climate, a New York-based indie group with a sound very reminiscent of that era. A sumptuous wash of noisy guitars and a steady, dreamlike beat, it is relaxing and exciting all at the same time. You should actually go check out the rest of their EP, Radio Tower Pulse. Rewind the Wind is particularly wonderful, in my most humble opinion.

Wry Climate - Low Tide from Wry Climate on Vimeo.

We had an email drop into our inbox the other day (addressed to Hugh but WHOOPS I GUESS I READ YOUR MAIL, BUDDY) from Afor Gashum, that described the group as a “leftfield, innovative shoegaze/post-punk band based in Tel Aviv”. I pretty much missed all of that (and the rest of the email) when I saw the word ‘shoegaze’: be still, my beating heart!

Shoegazing this album most assuredly is, to my delight. It’s full of the wailing guitars and fuzz-heavy bass that I do enjoy so much. Intriguingly, a lot of this album is performed in Hebrew, a language that I can’t say I’ve come across all too much in music. It truly does warm my heart that we live in a world where I can listen to fantastic music from all over the globe, and enjoy the heck out of it even if I don’t understand what’s being sung.

One day, I sat through the entire end credit reel for V for Vendetta. Because bored. Turns out to have been worth it, because I might never have discovered this tune. Yes, it turns out that even films about Natalie Portman’s streamlined new haircut can potentially house wonderful music: who’d have known it?

Despite my disdain at spelling spiritualised with a z (damn you, America!), this is a darn fine tune. I am all about the shoegazing and this song is doing some seriously hardcore gazing at shoes: it is simply a superb bit of space-flavoured rock.

Despite the apparent affinity for the shoegazing sub-genre that I’ve drunkenly meandered on about in more than a few posts on this here website, I have somehow neglected to mention Swervedriver at all. Not one iota of a mention. It is a good thing that I do not promote myself as having extensive abilities as a music blogger, or I’d have to be taken out back and shot as a treacherous cur.

As you may have guessed, Swervedriver dole out a healthy portion of shoegazing in this tune: if you hadn’t guessed that, you’d probably have to be taken out back and shot too, as an utter dullard! It encapsulates everything I love about shoegazing, as well as gives me a swift kick to go check out some more. Now, I’m not entirely sure where you can buy this tune, but I’m sure such enterprising folks as yourself will be able to procure it with a minimum of fuss.

I’ve harped on about shoegazing a couple of times, but I’ve never actually shown a concrete example. So it’s time to rectify that shortcoming with Ride, a (now defunct) group who were certainly a prominent purveyor of that crazily named style.

If you like your alternative rock to contain a huge amount of effect driven guitars, coupled with lucid vocalisations and a general feeling of grandness set in outer space, then welcome to shoegazing and please enjoy your stay! Wikipedia tells me that the genre label itself comes from “musicians in these bands [standing] relatively still during live performances in a detached, introspective, non-confrontational state, hence the idea that they were gazing at their shoes”. Makes sense to me.