new music: dreamsludge and video gamers gone bad

i've come to notice that there are quite a few artists heavily influenced by endless hours of pushing buttons in front of a computer screen. no, i didn't all of a sudden realize that there is electronic music composed and produced on computers out there, but rather people like dan deacon and max tundra whose main sources of inspiration seem to be soundtracks to old video games. both "which song" and "get older" are beautiful, over-the-top exercises in blissed-out melodic weirdness which perfectly capture the excitement of a night spent in front of, i don't know, giana sisters while entertaining juvenile fantasies about girls. yes, i consider that sort of thing to be exciting. oh, while i'm at it: the depreciation guild has a somewhat similar approach, although they merge purely synthetic sounds with shoegaze rock in the vein of mbv and the likes. their album can be downloaded for free, so count yourself lucky.

in other shoegazing news, i discovered the label crucial blast whose artists seem to be into creating an unlikely yet interesting mixture of pop, sludge metal, noise, and - yes - shoegaze. i say " seem to" because i don't have the resources to actually buy some of their records at the moment, but once the money starts flowing, count me in. how can you not love a label that is responsible for inventing the subgenre "dreamsludge"? see, no one thought of it before, but the world is a happier place now.

we're going to ibiza: jaytech's "pyramid"

i've always been very particular as far as my taste in music is concerned. here's a formula which guarantees any artist at least one committed fan, dandunne:

• put all sorts of -sus (maybe also -9th) chords into your songs and avoid overt harmonic experimentation
• under no circumstances use -7th chords more than twice in a song (unless it's a -7th minor chord)
  
• put the vocals way back in the mix
• bury everything under heavy layers of guitar or keyboard
• don't make excessive use of different time signatures
• be as blatantly melodic as you can

some musicians that conform (sometimes to a lesser degree) to these guidlines are bob mould, my bloody valentine, various old emo bands, m83, christian fennesz, and others. but the truth is: the oppressive sounds of the dream-like happy-sad variety aren't only heard in indiestan, but also on ibiza! here's jaytech. that keyboard break around 02:02 kills me every time. notice how the bass then adds another root chord. unbelievable. i refuse to consider this a guilty pleasure - i'm raving, i'm raving.