One of the more novel songs to pierce mainstream consciousness in recent years, “Let It Happen” is a psychedelic disco-rock epic largely inspired by Kevin Parker’s chance encounter with a classic Bee Gees banger while cruising around L.A. high on mushrooms and coke. For those who can’t get enough of the way Tame Impala blur together trippy hypnotism and funk-fueled repetition, guitars and synthesizers, kaleidoscopes and mirror balls, I’ve pulled together a few tracks — some old, others new — that bottle varying concentrations of these potent qualities. The slick, light-refracting cuts drawn from ’70s disco definitely speak more to the coked-out aspects of Parker’s stoned epiphany. The quirky art rock and alt-dance jams, on the other hand, throb with the visionary delirium unique to a ’shrooms journey. The mix covers a lot of ground; after all, it includes both Daft Punk and Electric Light Orchestra. Yet it maintains an alluring, deeply immersive sensibility throughout. Hopefully, you’ll dig it as well.
Some may argue that shoegaze is not even a sound but an otherworldly sensation that engulfs both listener and creator from the ground up (literally). See, it wasnt the shoes these artists were gazing at, but the pedals beneath them—pedals that could turn a simple six-string into a conduit to another state of consciousness. In the entire musical spectrum, shoegaze is really just a blip, a micro-genre for guitar geeks and perpetual daydreamers, yet its worth a 50 All-Time Best playlist from Pitchfork because its been so influential to nearly every indie movement following it—and still is. Id even go as far as to say that many of those dark, dreamy, atmospheric soundscapes dominating 21st-century indie, electronic, even hip-hop could arguably be traced back to Kevin Shields feet. And Pitchfork agrees My Bloody Valentine is where shoegaze starts and (basically) ends. From there, their list isnt too terribly shocking, loaded at the top with the genres usual suspects (Slowdive, Ride, Swervedriver) and sprinkled with artists like M83 and Ulrich Schnauss who have shifted their gaze downward once or twice for some notable space excursions. But shoegaze has never been about the artists themselves—theres no room for ego in all that ecstatic haze, after all.
The ’90s have never sounded better than they do right now—especially for modern-day indie rockers. There’s no shortage of bands banging around these days whose sound suggests formative phases spent soaking up vintage ’90s indie rock. Not that the neo-’90s sound is itself a new thing. As soon as the era was far enough away in the rearview mirror to allow for nostalgia to set in (i.e., the second half of the 2000s), there were already some young artists out there onboarding ’90s alt-rock influences. But more recently, there’s been a bumper crop of bands that betray a soft spot for a time when MTV still played music videos and streaming was just something that happened in a restroom. In this context, the literate, lo-fi approach of Pavement has emerged as a particularly strong strand of the ’90s indie tapestry, and it isn’t hard to hear echoes of their sound in the work of more recent arrivals like Kiwi jr. or Teenage Cool Kids. Cherry Glazerr frontwoman Clementine Creevy seems to have a feeling for the kind of big, dirty guitar riffs that made Pacific Northwestern bands the kings of the alt-rock heap once upon a time. The world-weary, wise-guy angularity of Car Seat Headrest can bring to mind the lurching, loose-limbed attack of Railroad Jerk. And laconic, storytelling types like Nap Eyes stand to prove that there’s still a bright future ahead for those who mourn the passing of Silver Jews main man David Berman. But perhaps the best thing about a face-off between the modern indie bands evoking ’90s forebears and the old-school artists themselves is the fact that in this kind of competition, everybody wins.
