PopMatters' Best Shoegaze and Dream Pop Albums of 2018

Swapping producer Chris Coady for Spaceman 3\'s Pete \"Sonic Boom\" Kember, Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand fully embrace their bliss on *7*, their haziest, dreamiest album yet. They move seamlessly from meditative to trippy, adopting swelling, stately, Spector-swilling-martinis-with-Eno arrangements on \"Last Ride\" and entering a reverb-drenched citadel of synths on \"L\'Inconnue.” Seeming more unabashedly themselves than ever, this is the sound of Beach House doubling down on the aqueous dream-pop perfection that made them indie heroes in the first place.

7 is our 7th full-length record. At its release, we will have been a band for over 13 years. We have now written and released a total of 77 songs together. Last year, we released an album of b-sides and rarities. It felt like a good step for us. It helped us clean the creative closet, put the past to bed, and start anew. Throughout the process of recording 7, our goal was rebirth and rejuvenation. We wanted to rethink old methods and shed some self-imposed limitations. In the past, we often limited our writing to parts that we could perform live. On 7, we decided to follow whatever came naturally. As a result, there are some songs with no guitar, and some without keyboard. There are songs with layers and production that we could never recreate live, and that is exciting to us. Basically, we let our creative moods, instead of instrumentation, dictate the album’s feel. In the past, the economics of recording have dictated that we write for a year, go to the studio, and record the entire record as quickly as possible. We have always hated this because by the time the recording happens, a certain excitement about older songs has often been lost. This time, we built a "home" studio, and began all of the songs there. Whenever we had a group of 3-4 songs that we were excited about, we would go to a “proper” recording studio and finish recording them there. This way, the amount of time between the original idea and the finished song was pretty short (of the album’s 11 songs, 8 were finished at Carriage House in Stamford, CT and 2 at Palmetto Studio in Los Angeles). 7 didn’t have a producer in the traditional sense. We much preferred this, as it felt like the ideas drove the creativity, not any one person’s process. James Barone, who became our live drummer in 2016, played on the entire record. His tastes and the trust we have in him really helped us keep rhythm at the center of a lot of these songs. We also worked with Sonic Boom (Peter Kember). Peter became a great force on this record, in the shedding of conventions and in helping to keep the songs alive, fresh and protected from the destructive forces of recording studio over-production/over-perfection. The societal insanity of 2016-17 was also deeply influential, as it must be for most artists these days. Looking back, there is quite a bit of chaos happening in these songs, and a pervasive dark field that we had little control over. The discussions surrounding women’s issues were a constant source of inspiration and questioning. The energy, lyrics and moods of much of this record grew from ruminations on the roles, pressures and conditions that our society places on women, past and present. The twisted double edge of glamour, with its perils and perfect moments, was an endless source (see “L’Inconnue,” “Drunk in LA,” “Woo,” “Girl Of The Year,” “Last Ride”). In a more general sense, we are interested by the human mind's (and nature’s) tendency to create forces equal and opposite to those present. Thematically, this record often deals with the beauty that arises in dealing with darkness; the empathy and love that grows from collective trauma; the place one reaches when they accept rather than deny (see “Dark Spring,” “Pay No Mind,” “Lemon Glow,” “Dive,” “Black Car,” “Lose Your Smile”). The title, 7, itself is simply a number that represents our seventh record. We hoped its simplicity would encourage people to look inside. No title using words that we could find felt like an appropriate summation of the album. The number 7 does represent some interesting connections in numerology. 1 and 7 have always shared a common look, so 7 feels like the perfect step in the sequence to act as a restart or “semi-first.” Most early religions also had a fascination with 7 as being the highest level of spirituality, as in "Seventh Heaven.” At our best creative moments, we felt we were channeling some kind of heavy truth, and we sincerely hope the listeners will feel that. Much Love, Beach House

Written and recorded in a small room on the outskirts of Joshua Tree, CA by Greg Bertens, Justin Labo, Nyles Lannon, Jason Ruck. Drums on many songs by Adam Wade.

After a 10 year hiatus, Western New York space rockers The Daysleepers have returned to envelope you in a wave of cosmic oblivion with their new album "Creation". With songs ranging from massive wall-of-sound epics (Sundiver/Flood in Heaven/Creation), Chill, ambient drifters (This Dark Universe/The Memorymaker/The Monolith), and spacey, upbeat new wave cuts (Arclights/Tropics), The Daysleepers show more variety than ever before, proving they can bring different hues and shades to the shoegaze/dream pop genre all under the umbrella of one monumental album. As Creation effortlessly cascades through ambient textures, thick layers of jetstream guitars, and a thundering rhythm section, one thing is for sure...you've never heard The Daysleepers this big before.

Although civilization’s transition into a cyborg world seems inevitable, there are still those who recognize the beauty and power of a human touch to complement the circumvention. Jack Tatum understands this balance, and through a decade making music as Wild Nothing he has learned to embrace both sides of that dynamic—but perhaps never as distinctly as on Indigo, the fourth Wild Nothing album. On one hand, it is a return to the fresh, transcendent sweep of his debut, 2010’s Gemini, and on the other, a culmination of heights reached, paths traveled, and lessons learned while creating the follow-ups, Nocturne and Life of Pause. Indigo finds Tatum at his most efficient, calculated, and confident—resulting in an artful blend of hi-fi humanity and technology that fires on all circuits and synapses.

"Sundays" is the debut full length from Oakland-based Tanukichan, aka multi-instrumentalist Hannah van Loon. At surface level, the album sounds just how the title describes: hazy, dreamy, reflective, just like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Upon second and third listens, the dreamy music unveils a deeper world: an ever present sense of longing, an endless state of summer and a period of instability that plagues us all at one point or another in our lives. Raised in San Francisco, van Loon started out making classical, bluegrass and jazz music as well as playing in numerous bands in the area before deciding to make something more personal. What started with a few unfocused demos, with van Loon playing all the instruments herself in her house, became a studio experience and viable collection of music after her friend Anthony Ferraro of Astronauts, Etc. introduced her to Company Records founder Chaz Bear (Toro Y Moi, Les Sins). After collaborating on her 2016 EP "Radiolove," van Loon and Bear set out to make a much more sonically cohesive release, with both the producer and artist playing all the instruments on the record. The result is a slice of dream pop that could only come from the combination of the laid back atmosphere of California and the nostalgic and often difficult memories that are generally associated with coming of age. To van Loon, the tracks of "Sundays" are a form of contemplation and approaching life’s issues from a different and less complicated perspective. “Sometimes for me, it feels easier to write songs about things than to talk. A lot of things in life are layered and paradoxical, but with songs it always seems simpler.” Opening track “Lazy Love” sets the stage, sonically and lyrically, for the rest of the album, combining vulnerable lyrics with gorgeous, fuzzy tones. Above pummeling synths and guitar tones, van Loon sings “you know I'd do anything/don't you know I try my best/if I could wake up when the sun is rising” showing the album’s constant theme of balancing always wanting to be the best person you can be, while also feeling a low level joy at letting life play out as it wants to. “Natural” is a track that feels perfect for a road trip, a track that hums away with a driving beat, culminating in the sheer excitement of finally having a night alone with someone you’ve loved for a while, among many highs and lows: “a window too bright/it's natural sunlight/grey fades to white lie/kiss you tonight/it's natural delight/help me feel right.” The tracks collectively address a deep rooted sense of yearning for someone, something new, while also feeling content with your life; a realization that maybe the places you’ve always belonged aren’t where you should be anymore, that suddenly you might be looking for something completely different. “I settled on the name 'Sundays' as the title of the record because it encapsulated how the record felt to me,“ van Loon says. “I was thinking about the laziness, and dreamy clarity that you can feel after a late night, waking up having to face the world with a new perspective.” "Sundays" encapsulates this feeling, a nostalgic way of looking at the world, waking up feeling like a slightly different person than before, looking back on life, not sure if you can tackle what’s next, but doing your best, day in and day out.

“Change” is dedicated to movement, to transformation. In the last few years, the band passed through a lot of changings: relationships, new births, life philosophies. The lineup has changed as well: with Raffaele Bocchetti joining the band, the In Her Eye classic sound recreates and enrich itself with new new hues and shades. New songs reflect this situation: the habitual influences are always there, but all is addressed to the next level. Sometimes it’s psychedelia, sometimes it’s pop. It’s all a game of #change

Soft Science are following their celebrated release, Detour, with a new album titled Maps. The quintet’s third full-length release is their most polished to date as it captures more of the band’s raw live energy while still engaging the listener with the dreamy atmospheric reverberations that have become a hallmark of the band’s sound. The album features whirling guitars, airy vocals, and captivating melodies that will ring in your head long after your first listen. Maps is a complete work of 10 well-crafted songs, featuring a re-recording of the earworm track Breaking, and the albums first two singles, Undone and Sooner, that showcase the dream-gaze collective’s signature sound. Soft Science will be playing live to support the release with shows in the US and Europe, including performances at Kirkand Summerfest, presented by KEXP, and the Paris Popfest. Review Quotes: “Soft Science are continuing to produce some of the most exciting music out of the US West Coast with their unique take on shoegaze/dream pop.” – Backseat Mafia "One of the best songs of 2018" – John Richards, KEXP “A gorgeously fuzz-washed slice of post-gaze… full of spine-tingling flourishes and trance-like beauty, warping and waning into gaseous clusters of reverb” – Get Into This “Alan McGee and Ivo Watts-Russell would’ve signed this band in a heartbeat, hearing the celestial guitars and booming rhythm section let alone Haley’s seductive, salubrious singing. Nothing soft about this science” – Big Takeover Magazine "Swirling delights with sugary, delectable vocals... brilliant energy with shimmering guitars, perfectly executed bass and percussion, bendy synths, and Katie Haley delivering some of my fave dreampop vocals in recent memory" – Somewherecold “Where the haze of shoegaze meets the pristine lines of pop… They join dots between that pre-Brit pop territory of early Lush or The Darling Buds and modern alternative pop fringes encapsulating the same pure pop heart wrapped in shimmering sonics, always reminding us that pop can be big and it can be clever” – Dancing About Architecture