Back in 2011, having released the astonishingly beautiful 7″ single ‘Underneath Tonight’, all eyes were on Melbourne quartet Lowtide, patiently awaiting their next move. Now, after what seems an eternity, the local shoegaze heros are back with their debut, self-titled full length release, one we’re pretty excited about.
Originally known as Three Month Sunset and centered around the solo workings of Gabriel Lewis, the band came together in 2008. Renamed Lowtide in 2010, their sound evolved from a single ambient, soaring, textured guitar into the band’s current, larger configuration framed by dual bassists/vocalists Lucy Buckeridge and Giles Simon and drummer Anton Jakovljevic.
The album, due for release July 18th via Lost And Lonesome Records, features the single ‘Blue Movie’ which is an absolute guitar fuzz dream. To celebrate the band’s return (of sorts) we asked Lowtide founding member Gabriel to guide us through some of this nation’s greatest shoegaze/dream-pop acts.
VHS Dream
The first three acts are bedroom shoegaze/dreampop projects. I feel a strong affinity with these kinds of acts as they are all solo. Hopefully I’ll get my shit together to record some more Three Month Sunset material again soon.
Matthew Hosking from Melbourne. Matt creates an extremely dense, thick wall of noise. Haunting washes of blurred guitar. I met him through Myspace several years ago and at one point we were attempting to take the solo project onto the stage in a band format. It’s not as easy as it sounds! I got lucky with Lowtide.
Blush Response
Alistair Douglas from Adelaide creates some awesome, chime-y pop gems with an undercoat of fuzz. I’m really impressed with his output so far. Great song writing and excellent execution. He’s quite a talented guy. Has a few other projects on the go, which are equal quality.
Kigo
Dwayne Pearce from Brisbane creates some very coarse textured, tremolo heavy guitars and lush, layered whispered vocals. He’s another multi-project freak, and I’m having trouble keeping up with his releases. Dwayne will probably kill me for saying but he’s nailed the sound so spot on that he sounds more like My Bloody Valentine than My Bloody Valentine! (Sorry)
Miniatures
Che Walden, Annemarie Duff and Aleks Savanovic. I met Che through some friends a few years back and had heard him mention that he had a band. One night at a Lowtide rehearsal I heard this amazing sound pouring through the wall and was amazed to find it was his band. Miniatures are dreampop bliss. Think Curve meets Cocteau Twins. Tight, bright, punchy, and swirly. They’ve recently taken a break to introduce a drum machine to the mix, and are looking to start gigging again at the end of July.
Contrast
Nathan Brown, James Thomson, Jack Crook, Thomas Smeets. I was introduced to Contrast after Nathan joined the band and have been following their progress ever since. These guys cover a few different 90s guitar-noise bases. They have a real chorus-sy pop vibe, as per Lush and Adorable. Combine that with the slacker delivery of Archers of Loaf and you have Contrast. We’ve played with them a handful of times and they just keep getting better and better!
Bloodhounds On My Trail
Johnny Green, Jonny O’hara, Nik Donaldson, Chris Donaldson. These guys only popped up on my radar recently. I think I found them through a shoegaze page on Facebook. They sound like how I want my guitars to sound. Needless to say, I was immediately hooked. Really languid, cascading washes, and wearing their pastoral shoegaze influences on their sleeves. They’re opening our album launch at The Tote. Get there early to see why I’m worried that I’ll soon be out of a job!
