rescuing musical virtue in distress.
Jazz is often seen as an acquired taste, a complex and niche musical style with a slightly inaccessible vibe to it. Pop music, by contrast, as being a frivolous and perhaps throwaway genre. But perhaps by mining a sonic seam that runs through both, you could come up with the best of both worlds, music... Continue Reading →
Imagine if you wanted to work in the singer-songwriter sonic playground but not merely follow the cliche lines of the battered acoustic guitar troubadour. Imagine if you wanted to play with slightly psychedelic moods and spacious indie sounds but not let those musical brushstrokes over-power the songs themselves. Imagine if you actually had something interesting... Continue Reading →
Pioneering shoegazers The Veldt have announced East Coast tour dates, including a mini-tour with legendary UK electronic gaze outfit Seefeel for their debut North American tour. Other appearances also involve other artists along with way. The tour kicks off on Friday, October 18 in Raleigh, when the band perform with Creation Records legends Swervedriver. The Veldt... Continue Reading →
Picking just ten albums out of the pack is always a tricky thing. This site has reviewed around 500 pieces of music this year from throw-away pop singles to album length progressive flights of fancy, from the well trodden grounds of classic rock to cutting edge experiments which are creating a whole new musical future.... Continue Reading →
I continue to be amazed by The Veldt’s ability to similtaniously shimmer yet saunter, chime but groove. How do you even do that? On the one hand they play with sounds which seem built of almost intangible, ethereal qualities, the stuff of stardust and dreams but the clever part is that they then bolt those... Continue Reading →
I need to stop viewing the world through my own skewed cultural lens, the one dividing it up into the things that were new, exciting when they defined my own formative years and the things which later referenced the music of my youth. Yes, there is a lot of the darker end of the 80’s... Continue Reading →
Music is cyclical, we all know that, 30 years seems to be the recognised time span for music to drop off the fashion radar long enough to seem cool or cult and be rediscovered and reinterpreted by a new musical generation. Brit-pop was a re-discovery of sixties guitar bands, punk was the distilled spirit of... Continue Reading →
The Veldt has always been a fascinating concept. Two black school kids in 80’s Raleigh, North Carolina dressing like European New Romantics and listening to the underground releases of London’s infamous 4AD label. A bold stance to take but one which led to the gathering together of like minded individuals and the result of course... Continue Reading →
If, like me, your references for shoe gaze come largely from a white, art-school, M4 corridor hinterland then The Veldt are the perfect reminder that often the best musical ideas tend to appear simultaneously in small pockets of creativity across a myriad of musical landscapes and geographical locations. The common factor has more to do with... Continue Reading →