Shoegazing is a genre name that I've always found extremelyinteresting. When you think about it, it is difficult to believe that acollection of musicians reputed to be frozen by downcast eyes couldperpetrate music so full of lush, expansive landscapes and gregariousmelodies. It seems like such a fearful, reticent posture particularlyin the face of music that seems so open and free. Feedback to the Futureis a slice of that dissonance, the very title being contradictory forthis look back. Billing itself as a compilation of eleven shoegazingsongs from those heady days of 1990 to 1992, Feedback serves asa brief dip into the bands of the period. The opening track immersesimmediately with a bright open chord that develops into a fuzzy riffbeneath the major scale melody of Revolver's "Heaven Sent an Angel."It's a bouncy, buoyant song that's an excellent opening shot of earlymorning light. It reminds me that listening to dream pop can be likemainlining sunshine, if that were at all possible. Blind Mr. Jones'"Small Caravan" and Slowdive's "Catch the Breeze" take a less exuberantpath than the opener, but are no less full of shifting textures andbeautiful passages. The latter song floats delicately, rising andfalling in swells of guitar and intertwining vocals that radiatethrough the polished cacophony. Ride's "Like a Daydream" bursts forthin a rush, with a pulsing chug that blooms into the overlapping melodichooks and vocals that find themselves deep in your brain for days afterhearing them. Representing the United States on this British dominatedcompilation is Boston's Drop Nineteens who appear with the song"Winona." The track does not have some of the hallmarks of shoegazingon the other side of the Atlantic, like the crescendo of guitar washes,but it does retain the sense of melody and song craft that makes eachsong on this compilation relentlessly catchy. Feedback to the Futureis a good introduction to some (but certainly not all, a notableexception being My Bloody Valentine) of the bands that made this stylepopular. It's not a perfect document, but hopefully it will encouragethe curious to go about filling in all the blanks on their own.samples:
- Revolver - Heaven Sent an Angel
- Ride - Like a Daydream
- Drop Nineteens - Winona
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