I always hope that there will be another reissue of some sort of some band that I never even knew existed. I figure that there has to be at least a couple dozen bands of the dreampop or shoegaze era that I have never heard before. Some band that only put out a couple of limited 7"s and EPs . I know they are out there! I just rely on some label such as Captured Tracks, Darla or Slumberland to reissue them and bring them out of their obscurity. Kranky has gone and done it this time. The band is Dreamscape. A perfect name for what the music sounds and feels like. I will be honest and tell you that I had absolutely never heard of this band until this week. Kranky is putting out a collection from Dreamscape called La-Di-Da Recordings on both CD and LP. The previously had an EP on the label La-Di-Da. This collection comes out next Tuesday 8/21. And you can pre-order them now on amoeba.com.

I really probably should have known who this band was. Two of its former members went on to be one of
my favorite bands of the era, Secret Shine. Dreamscape was around in the very early 90's and basically done being a band by the time I would have been into them. They are the perfect mix of all the best of shoegaze. A mix of The Cocteau Twins and Lush. Not as heavy as My Bloody Valentine. Not as amazing as Slowdive. But still a band that deserves your attention. Much more on the lighter and more ethereal side of shoegaze. This band obviously deserved much more recognition then they had at the time. I am glad to now have them in my life and I look forward to see what other barely known shoegaze bands might be out there. Thank you Kranky for bringing this album to us! Here is what Kranky has to say about the contents of this collection from Dreamscape...

I became a fan of Grouper a couple of years ago when I first heard Dragging A Dead Dear Up A Hill. That was Grouper's album from 2008. Grouper is Liz Harris. And Liz Harris is amazing. Her music is not for everyone. You really need to turn these albums up and probably be by yourself when you listen to them. This is not music really meant for the radio. And you for sure will not be hearing this in any bar or club. Grouper will not be playing over the speakers at your gym.  She will most likely be playing in your house while you sit in the middle of your room crying. Or maybe just contemplating life. I live for albums like these. Luckily there are not that many people out there like Grouper. As much as I love these albums. I just could probably not take too many of them at a time. Grouper has released a couple of things over the last couple of years. She released two albums last year titled Dream Loss and Alien Observer. These were released only on LP. But they are now available together on one CD titled A I A. This is brought to us by the fantastic label Kranky. They also released another album called Mirrorring that came out a couple of months ago. More on that later.

A friend told me about Grouper a couple of years ago. I think I was hooked on Grouper before I even listened to the album. That cover of Dragging A Dead Dear Up A Hill is something else. I really could not stop staring at it. I had not really paid much attention to her in the last couple of years. But I am once again hooked on Grouper. The album took me a couple of listens to get into it. I listened to it as background music a couple of times. But then all of a sudden I just got super into it. The songs are haunting and super mellow. She falls somewhere between goth folk and ambient experimental. It is some beautiful stuff. It really just makes be happy to have albums like this in my life. They sort of mellow me out. It balances out all the other stuff I listen to. It grounds me somehow. 

I am now even more obsessed with Antony & the Johnsons. After their amazing show last week it is really all I can think about it. I was completely blown away by the show. It was tragic and sad and beautiful and wonderful all at the same time. This was also my first trip to the Disney Concert Hall. What a perfect place to see him play. I seriously just wanted to stay there all night. I kind of want to live there permanently. We did sort of feel like tourists walking around the venue and looking around at everything, sort of like how tourists do when they first visit New York City and can't stop looking up at the skyscrapers. He ended up playing a bunch of new songs that were not from the recently released EP. I don't think I even noticed any of the songs from the EP that night. The new songs sounded fantastic and I am now even more excited for the new album next year. There were of course songs that I wanted to hear that he did not play, but he did manage to play some of my favorites, including his cover of "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce. It was a fun crowd to be around as well -- many celebrities were in the crowd that night. I was sitting next to a certain reality star of the show Work Out. Totally random. It just made me happy that he was a fan. Everyone was just in awe of Antony that night. It will be hard to compare other shows to this night. It was really that good.

Not a whole lot out this week. Christmas is around the corner, but once again the labels don't seem to have a whole lot to offer us. There is one new album that I have become a bit obsessed with. For some reason it took me over 10 years to finally discover Windy & Carl. I have long been a fan of the label Kranky. This new album Songs for the Broken Hearted will be their fourth on Kranky. Before this were Depths (98), Conciousness (01), and The Dream House (2005). They have also had about 6 or 7 other albums in between those Kranky albums over the years, in addition to a 3CD compilation in 2002 called Introspection. I have heard of them but never really gave them a listen until now. I was just waiting for somebody to tell me to listen to them, but it never happened. I thought they were a little too new age for me or maybe a little too experimental, but I really didn't know for sure. I gave this new album a listen and fell in love after the second listen. They almost sort of hide their greatness within the album. You may not find it right away. The casual listener could easily dismiss the album as another album of ambient droney shoegaze, but you just sort of have to open your mind a bit and let the album sort of take over. There are brilliant short little songs with vocals hidden between the rest of the album, which is mostly ambient sort of guitar pieces. The album is also very full of emotion. Depending on what kind of mood you are in, it could either drive you to tears or make you feel happy and content. This is another sort of album that I think of as musical therapy.