Sonic Cathedral Vinyl & CDs

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Lush fans will be aware that three of the bands albums are all being reissued, but also this year will founding member Emma Anderson release her solo debut long player. Pearlies, released by Sonic Cathedral, again shows why Anderson is one of the most underrated British songwriters to have come up during the Brit pop and shoegaze era. Here she works with Maps aka James Chapman on tune that effortlessly mix electronic pop with psych and folk and astute lyrics that muse on subjects such as confronting your fears, embracing independence and moving on.

Review: Andy Bell is a blessed man: he had none other than Neu!'s Michael Rother supply guitar parts to the opening cut 'I'm In Love' (a cover of The Passions' post-punk classic). Moreover, One Love's Dot Allison is guest vocalist and supplies ethereal tones to the breathtaking song. It opens the gate beautifully for the heady collection of entirely new material that follows. It's an album that navigates Stone Roses grooves and Arthur Russell style experimental textures and works just as well for close listening as it does moodily-lit dancefloors. The Ride guitarist is on the form of his life here and you could do far worse than letting this wash all over you.

Review: It's no wonder there's a nu-gaze movement bubbling up at the moment and showing no sign of dying down - the quality of the godfathers of the genre is just staggering. And you can count Chapterhouse as a key component of the transcendental and viscerally thrilling first wave of shoegaze. This collection features four songs that the Reading-based band recorded in January 1989 - including one that has never been released before. The track in question, 'See That Girl', is as good as any of the more direct songs that bands in their scene released in the 90s. It's their equivalent of Ride's 'Vapour Trail' and strong enough in and of itself to warrant getting the whole EP.

Review: World class dronesmiths Zach Frizzell, Marc Ertel and Damien Duque unleash their first joint effort in several years, delving deeper into the patented 'dronegaze' formula characterising their first outing 'Liberamente'. Landing somewhere in a soothingly liminal zone between the lighter and more introspective tone floats of La Monte Young and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's roomy feedback washes, the trio extract a vast array of sweet, soporific and unconventional timbres from instruments both acoustic and electrified to meditative effect. A perfect soundtrack to studious introspection and languid bliss-outs alike.

Review: If there's a list of bands to get - or be - excited about to hand, then add Dummy to it. The Los Angeles crew formed in late-2018, and had a solid run of things through to the great pandemic pause, and between then and now have evolved pretty quickly to get to where they are. All the trappings of a group deserving of cut status, although sadly perhaps not huge commercial success (then again, who is these days?), attempting to define their sound isn't easy.

As this vinyl-only outing proves. Comprising two EPs - logically entitled 'EP1' and 'EP2', both released in 2020 - this is very dense stuff indeed. Veering from the blissful, earthy ambience of 'Second Contact', to sci-fi synth refrains on 'Touch the Chimes', and Pixies-style garage rock chaos with 'Slacker Mask', we implore you not to pass these over.

Review: Deerhunter co-founder and drummer Moses Archuleta works solo under the Moon Diagrams alias and here he impresses once more with a second album, Cemetery Classics. This 12-track release is a collaboration between Sonic Cathedral and Angus Andrew's new label No Gold adn it has been mixed by Simian Mobile Disco man James Ford. Guests like Anastasia Coope, Patrick Flegel and Josh Diamond from Gang Gang Dance all feature on what is Archuleta's first new music since 2019's Trappy Bats mini-album. The album spans several genres, as you would expect, from Basinski-esque degradation on 'Neptune' to industrial noise on 'Listen To Me,' with postmodern pop, trip-hop, shoegaze, and more. The man himself calls it a "graveyard disc" of songs for the afterlife.

Review: Sonic Cathedral share the debut album of Not Me But Us, Two, facilitating the Neapolitan duo's astonishing talent for production and pitch-bent melancholy. Made up of Bruno Bavota and Fabrizio Somma (aka. K-Conjog), this new effort blends each of their influences with echoes of ambient, techno, 2000s club culture, postclassical music and hints of post-rock, making for a fascinating electronica cocktail. Lending well to Bavota's usual piano-based pieces, the new collaborative approach, which fed a new interest in analog gear, also resulted in an effective vehicle to process grief and gaze into new horizons for the artists.

Review: Martin Jenkins aka Pye Corner Audio has been a busy man. He ended a fine trio of albums last year with Entangled Routes, then dropped a live album on this label early in the year, and now quickly follows it up with yet another fine long player. Ride guitarist Andy Bell plays on five of the tunes and is a collection that comes heated by plenty of sun and coloured with bright acid psychedelics. Says the man himself, "I try to tailor my work slightly differently for the various labels that I work with, and this seems to fit nicely with Sonic Cathedral's ethos." He has sure done that.

Review: We've all been party to solo material by seminal UK shoegaze sorts Ride's guitarist Andy Bell, but what about their bassist? Not so much. Well, that's about to change. Enter the brooding debut solo album from Ride's low-end maestro Steve Queralt. A largely instrumental affair, there's elements of shoegaze and darkly textured soundscapes. Plus there's guest appearances from more 90s legends: Emma Anderson (formerly of Lush and Sing-Sing) and Verity Susman (Electrlane, MEMORIALS) grace the album. Anderson sings on the pummeling lead single 'Lonely Town', which was launched with an aptly monochrome meditative montage of a music video. Given the power of this debut, we suspect this nine-song collection is the first of many solo albums to come, from a musician who has nothing to prove, but plenty to express.

Review: Even if you've not heard Three Quarter Skies yet, this one should already be in the shopping cart. They had us at 'new project from Simon Scott of Slowdive', and we're not sure anybody has bothered to look back since. Eight gorgeous tracks that have grown out of last year's Universal Flames EP, which introduced this new moniker to the world, and was itself based on a semi-improvised live recording session. Here, though, things are resolutely more focused and planned. Depth of sound is a big aspect, with plenty navigating similar cosmic territories to the shoegaze Scott built his stellar reputation on. Close your eyes to the world then, and allow these sounds to wash over and immerse you - there's little chance you'll find anything quite so powerful this week.