Look Down and What Do You See?

Shoegazing is a term that is completely new to me; I had seen the genre title bouncing around, but never fully understood what it meant. One day, someone sat me down and said, "Danielle, shoegazing is when musicians are gazing at their shoes constantly because they are executing so many effects on their guitar pedals!" The sentence may not have been structured quite that formally, but it was something along those lines.

Nu Gaze, or "the new wave of shoegaze" (thanks, Wikipedia! You'll always be my friend^_^), is my most current musical infatuation.

As soon as I heard distortion followed by guitar licks that sounds like they were made underwater, I was sold. Add in a steady, simple drum beat and higher pitched indiscernable male vocals, and I could no longer resist. I can't get enough of this noise, but as with all of my genre affairs, some albums or artists stand out more than others.

So without further adieu, I present to you my first recommendation for this genre: Deerhunter.

Start with the album "Microcastle" (2008). Some of you may have heard it, some of you may have not. Regardless of who you are, if you have ever enjoyed Radiohead, consider giving Deerhunter a thorough listen. In fact, that's how I feel about most of this "shoegazing" genre: Post-Radiohead.

The bottom line is, this album is pure ambient guitar licks, experimental sounds and a variety of tempos (all cradling Bradford Cox's crooning vocals). The other Deerhunter album I happened to download was the earlier "Cryptograms", which is far more experimental and less structured than Deerhunter's later endeavors, but still worth a listen to see the progression of the band.

Here's my Deerhunter pick:
"Never Stops" from Microcastle


Love,
Danielle