Tag Archives: dream pop

‘Footscray Station’ by Scott & Charlene’s Wedding   (London, England)

Scott and Charlene’s Wedding is a rock band whose music might actually subvert all attempts at description. How? To put it bluntly: they just aren’t doing anything new. Jangling, country-tinged guitar leads rattle lazily over chord progressions that I’ve heard so many times I couldn’t even tell you if chords are progressing.  This double-A release, which collects the tracks ‘Footscray Station’ and the fairly similar sounding ‘Rejected’ is a nicely packaged piece of across-the-pond scuzz rock. It is very listenable; indeed, the noise and the bluster on this single comes off as earned and authentic. There is an obvious My Bloody Valentine influence that has been condensed into dragged across the floor off-kilter riff pop, and some nice hints of early Pavement.

But there really is not much to describe, which frustrates me as a describer of music, and one who celebrates novelty in his own descriptions. There are fairly standard, angst-ridden lyrics about being rejected and being a loser and being a teenager who smokes cigarettes out back with the other wastes of space. The vocals are fairly whiny, stabbing into a weird middle register that is neither high and distressing nor baritone and soothing, and they provide the only touchstone for critical discourse via the fact that they are somewhat unpleasant to listen to. The guitar riff that opens ‘Footscray Station’ has a nice, mid-90s lo-fi ring to it, and the song’s shuffling beat sounds like it would be a joy to play and to see performed live. The lo-fi is refreshingly distressed and the fidelity nicely torn; both of these songs are presented competently, but there is nothing new or interesting going on in either of them.

It is not the fault of Scott & Charlene’s Wedding that such is the case; it is the fault of a music listening public that has opted for sedation rather than discomfort. I am not some sort of musical anarchist and I definitely do not only listen to avant-garde and envelope-pushing music. I believe that writing and playing music can be therapeutic, and if you need to borrow someone else’s words or sound to participate in that therapy then so be it. But it’s very difficult to write interesting things about music when musicians – and music listeners – neglect to create or consume interesting music.

Scott & Charlene’s Wedding have released a fairly listenable single (and their album Para Vista Social Club is honestly not bad), but it’s difficult for me to endorse it because I feel like I’ve heard it hundreds of times already. Yes, it’s important that we support artists who do things for themselves (this is the Dingus manifesto, more or less), and it is absolutely true that Scott & Charlene’s Wedding are better than a lot of groups much more popular than they are. But it’s like I said: there just isn’t much I can say about their music.

 get physical if…
-You’re ready to punch me in the face
-You’re looking for something to listen to on a drive in the rain
-You’re a startlingly obsessive Anglophile

just download if…
-You’ve found yourself on either side of the Frank Zappa vs Steely Dan debate
-You think Radiohead is the high mark to which all British bands must aspire
-You don’t earn the tears in your jeans, you buy them

 I’m going to call this…
The Lowest Fi

‘Light and Skin’ by Uwue   (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)

Following up last week’s review of their single ‘It’s All Lore,’ I treat myself to another dose of Uwue, who seem to have released said single in tandem with ‘Light and Skin.’ Again, we have an arpeggiating piano riff that will not be unfamiliar to listeners of late-80s new age music, but there is something a little more cynical – and a lot more interesting – going on in ‘Light and Skin’ than there was with ‘It’s All Lore’. ‘Light and Skin’ is a haughty garble of new age and synth-pop, with its luxurious piano parts and art gallery basslines being sped through a dark wood on a dark night.

Again, we have touches of later Kate Bush, but this time the vocals do more to evoke the icon’s idiosyncratic moments with leaping, enchanted acts of maladroit bluster all their own. The melodies’ strange movements are reminiscent of more modern dream-pop fare like Twin Sister, but the presentation is entirely too crystalline – and definitely too absent any hip-hop or indie influences – to make the same kind of splash that a band like Twin Sister might. Dream-pop can mean a lot of things, and Uwue’s music seems to lack a lot of the effervescence associated with the genre; preferring, instead, a direct and clerical approach.

get physical if…
-You like Talk Talk but you think they went a little too far…
-You are currently in the waiting room of a day spa
-You want to soundtrack the time you spend on Pinterest

just download if…
-You have asked “where’s the guitar?” while listening to music before
-You have no sympathy for later-day Roxy Music
-You would never substitute a salad for fries

I’m going to call this…
Music for Ordering Brunch Online

@HemlockShaw