I didn’t get to hear that many new “rock” records this year. I generally don’t get sent that kind of stuff, and rarely get to a physical shop, so I’m limited to cherry-picking familiar, or interesting looking names from the online stock of more “eclectic” Japanese stores like Jetset. If anyone has recommendations of good “alt rock” radio shows, please send them over. One person whose productions did play a large part in my personal soundtrack was David Holmes. I picked up both Unloved albums, Polychrome and their Killing Eve compilation, Ode To The Lovers. I’m a huge fan of the trio’s razor sharp retro-not-retro romantic rock’n’roll noir narratives, and Polychrome also introduced some Vanishing Twin-like cosmic jazz.  

David’s own LP, Blind On A Galloping Horse, musically mixed electro and classic kosmische, while vocalist Raven Violet gave the songs a both punk and `60s girl group edge. Her harmonies hammering home the pair’s humanitarian politics, in the shape Situationist-esque slogans that called for understanding and unity in the face of adversity. This was art with the aim of shaking the apathetic from their despair, and putting power back in the hands of the people. 

I’m a sucker for that sorta streetwise femme fatale girl group stuff, and reissued 7s bv Karen Verros and Vickie & The Van Dykes, both shared a cute, kinda camp, tongue-in-cheek, Tame Me Tiger-esque growl, and so fed my habit. 

Shoegaze, 30 odd years since the term was coined, also still seems to be something that can’t get enough of. Dreams Never End finally pressed La Casa Al Mare’s This Astro onto vinyl. Taking the bulk of their cues from My Bloody Valentine, this was something that I’d been waiting for since I first became obsessed with the Italian outfit’s song, Tonight Or Never, back in 2015. Liz “Grouper” Harris repressed her 2016 single, Paradise Valley. The intimately mic’d, simply strummed Headache partnering the similarly fragile, I’m Clean Now. The latter, a picked and plucked, heartbroken murmur. An ethereal web, as if woven from spider’s silk, gossamer. Both sides are deliciously doomed dream pop, like shoegaze minus the feedback and noisy cathartic rush. 

Belver Yin brought us a brilliant new album of Cocteau Twins / Robin Guthrie-inspired songs, dedicated to his mother, Para Mi Madre. New Jersey’s Slow Salvation released Here We Lie,  a sublime, slightly melancholy soak in a Slowdive-esque sound, which was mastered by Simon Scott, drummer with that seminal, scene-shaping `90s group. Part of this music’s draw, at least in my case, is nostalgia. Its distorted harmonic sheen holding hazy, high as kite memories of packed house parties, watching “Alison”, unrequited, from afar. Hugged by E. Fogged in a fuzzy psychedelic blur. Slowdive themselves returned with Everything Is Alive, which, for me, was one of 2023’s most played, from start to finish, albums. Less strictly shoegaze perhaps than their seminal 90s sets, such as Souvlaki, it instead touched on the pop of The Cure and New Order, particularly on the cracking lead single, Kisses. 

East Village were an ensemble that sought to break out of the UK’s “shambling band” / 1960s obsessed C-86 indie-rock scene, and in the process helped to pave the way for a mid-90s explosion of guitar-based British bands, like Slowdive and Oasis. East Village, however, disintegrated in 1990 just as they were about to release their debut album, Drop Out. Initially shelved until 1992, in late December Heavenly gave the LP a deluxe 30th anniversary reissue, with a digital bonus of a second album’s worth of tracks taken from the sessions. I plan to write a bit more about this record when the vinyl officially lands later this month. 

Both Bristol’s Vashti Bunyan-affiliated Budgee and Haifa’s Karen Dalton-like Ella Raphael delivered digital singles and E.P.s of folkier frequencies, great lyrics and melodies, that really took my fancy. The Brian Eno-esque ballad Til The End was one of the highlights on David Kitt’s Idiot Check. 

Sacred Bones gave us a short, succinct primer on the productions, jams, and freak-outs, of notorious `60s Californian collective / commune, The Source Family, and founder/ leader, Father Yod. Night School repressed “The Greatest Hits” of San Francisco’s Space Lady, another, more contemporary, West Coast outsider.  

I also invested in a brilliant, comp, focused on leftfield mid-90s UK pop, called In The Light Of Time. Complied by Jorge Cortes Castro (of Madrid’s Lovemonk), with super sleeve notes by Jeanette Leach, the album’s a great introduction to the likes of Laika, Disco Inferno*, and Seefeel, and led me to also discover Insides, and their incredible 1993 debut, Euphoria. It was when describing this Brighton-based duo, that the respected music scribe, Simon Reynolds, came up with the phrase, now genre, “Post Rock”. Again, I hope to do something more on this collection, and these artists, but I’m waiting for a copy of Jeanette’s book, Fearless, to arrive first.

*A big Thank You To Jeff Beckett for the initial introduction to Disco Inferno.

TRACK-LIST
Slow Salvation – Carousel
Unloved – Strange Effect
Insides – Darling Effect
Belver Yin – Ayer Como Hoy
Disco Inferno – Second Language
East Village – Black Autumn
Grouper – I`m Clean Now
Ella Raphael – See You Through
Belver Yin – Una Vida Por Delante (Candelas Song)
La Casa Al Mare – Tonight Or Never
Slowdive – Prayer Remembered
Father Yod – Different Dreams
Slowdive – Kisses
East Village – Here It Comes
Slow Salvation – Here We Lie
David Kitt – Til The End
Laika – Starry Night
Budgee – Pell Mell