Back in 1991, when I was at college in Boston and Nevermind was on superduper heavy rotation on WFNX alongside Soundgarden and Alice in Chains and all the other northwestern bands, I found myself shifting in the opposite direction, looking eastward over the ocean and listening to the sounds of roaring walls of wobbly guitar noise from My Bloody Valentine and Ride. There was just something about the otherworldly dreaminess of the sounds of the Creation, 4AD and Rough Trade labels. Grunge was alright and all, but it couldn’t hold a candle to my beloved shoegaze.

In 2019, having become a constant listener to Seattle’s KEXP, I realized that shoegaze wasn’t just experiencing a small comeback over the past few years. There were more bands out there embracing that wall-of-reverb sound than the previous years, and they were all releasing singles and albums that were absolutely fantastic. They weren’t just emulating the sounds of 1991…they were owning it and making it their own. And they weren’t just from the UK, either…they were from all over the world.

We have Dead Horse One from Valence in southern France…

We have Lo! Peninsula, from Imphal, India…

We have Tallies, from Toronto, Canada…

We have Pinkshinyultrablast from St Petersburg, Russia…

We have Deserta from Los Angeles, CA…

I never get sick of this sound. Sure, it’s essentially the MBV-tested equation of playing augmented guitar chords, fed through heavy reverb, turned way the fuck up high, and the extremely liberal use of the whammy bar to achieve that soaring wobble. But man, it’s that dreaminess the sound achieves that just hits all the right buttons for me.

And I love that it’s alive and well, and all over the world.