“Paris is not an easy place to be a band, if only because of the extreme population density – it’s tough to get around with gear, there’s limited space to make loud noise, etc.  Still, there are great things happening thanks to the hard work of some very dedicated people.” – Bryan Quinn

“When I discovered French punk I had to start listening with headphones under my blanket because they were saying bad words…. standard stuff for a middle class kid.” – Renaud Chauré

“The music being made in our area has typically been “weird” and often served along with an eagerness to both honor our roots and get out of town.” – Meriel Westermeyer

“We feel we’ve definitely pushed ourselves to become better musicians and songwriters overall over the years in writing these songs…” – Kelli Redding

“I will admit that when I started the band my main concern was choosing inclusive members for the band and mostly sought out female or female identifying folks.” – Rachel Thode

“We’ve had a weird year of trying to figure out what we want. Sometimes a consistent band sounds great but other times I think we want all the control. Right now though, we’re going on 4 months of being a 3 piece. It’s been cool because I never thought that could work but it’s proven to be really fun. I like the space.” – Brendan Dyer

“… the freedom to really convey the visual aspects that reflect the sort of chaotic melange of technique and eclectic influence whose collage results in the sparkling squalor and mesmerizing mire of our chaotic glamour steeped in swooning sentimentality is my childhood dream realized.” – Catalina Gallegos

“There are so many genres and labels people give themselves. I think when the word “shoegaze” is used, people automatically get this mind picture of what they’re about to hear… the usual dreamy, reverb-y, washy sounds which are all of the sounds we typically try to avoid.” – Rocky Maldonado

“I was writing it across multiple years and going through a lot of different influences which I think it’s easy for that to bleed through a bit. I feel like it was mostly just my emotional state. I was going through some sad stuff in my life for a bit, there’s not a lot of happy songs on the record for that reason” – John Cudlip

The Big Takeover is excited to premiere the new single by Tucson shoegazers Mute Swan.

Spiritualized live performance in Tucson, AZ

“I think figuring out better ways to record and sing was another reason I wanted to work with more people on this album rather than doing it myself again and just keep doing the same thing. I mean, even the first project there was not anything that I didn’t like about the way it turned out but I wanted to try something new and see if there was something I could be doing better.” – Matthew Doty

“I realized that removing myself from my daily life and all the other other things going on that make it so hard to focus, was really helpful. That time definitely made me see that if I had this concerted effort to which I can dedicate time to writing songs, helped really sort out a lot of things that I was thinking and feeling instead it feeling like it’s all a jumbled mess …” – Rosali

The band took to the Club Congress stage with Mwondela donning one of the band’s iconic chitenge cloth hats (initially designed to curb stage fright in the 1970s). Jagari (nicknamed after the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger), now 70, was in fine form both vocally and physically, dancing around the stage, high-fiving the crowd, and handing out a cowbell for people to contribute rhythm.

“I believe that all these atmospheric genres like shoegaze and post-rock are like classical music in the world of rock music. When we are listening to it the music brings us some philosophical mood and we are more open to see the beauty of nature and think of some things that are somewhere above our daily life.” – Yana Guselnikova

“I am inspired by Wes Anderson’s films and modern architecture. I like simple forms and bright color combinations.” Daniil Levshin on Blankenberge’s cover art

“The eureka moment for me came when I was 15 in 1991. I was watching MTV 120 Minutes and Slowdive’s Morningrise came on and I was instantly floored. I’d never heard anything as beautiful before. I couldn’t understand what I was listening to. Are those guitars … or synths?” – Michael Farren

“If you think about names of famous bands, after awhile it becomes a signifier for the band, it’s drained of content. Is The Beatles a good name? It’s a stupid name right? But The Beatles are THE BEATLES!” – Tim Brown

“At least, the silver lining is that when we can play again, people will care about live music and it will be special again.” – Donna McKean

The first release from Fleeting Joys is now available again on vinyl! Released on CD at the start of 2006 followed by the vinyl version in 2011 with both versions long sold out since, Despondent Transponder is now the subject of a limited edition re-release.

“Our approach to music has always been DIY. My first job was at a big label and I saw them spending artists’ money on ridiculous dinners, payola, etc. Their exploitation of the artists was disgusting. It seemed more pure to integrate recording and releasing into our daily lives so that we could do things exactly as we wanted them.” – Rorika Loring

“The ability to experiment endlessly is both the best and worst part of technology. Like everyone, we benefit, and suffer from it. We hated getting off of tape, but our writing process requires maximum flexibility to rearrange songs. Aside from multiple reverbs and a whammy, what’s really important is the instrumentation.” – John Loring

“People are going to re-evaluate what their time means to them and see how valuable it is to have time to focus on yourself and the things you want to do.” – Esther Mulders

“The fact that we have always been associated with hardcore a little bit makes us a bit more free of barriers in some ways because we’re not trying to please a “indie” crowd or not trying to please a “hardcore” crowd or any crowd for that matter.” – Victor Beaudoin

“Do you think Kevin Shields, Jim Reid or Kurt Cobain ever said they were a specific genre? We aren’t necessarily looking to fall into a genre, we’re just looking to make rad art that will move people, the same way the art that influences us has moved us.” – Matty Taylor

“The theme of death just kind of bubbled to the surface as the characters’ narratives started to take shape and intertwine. After I wrote “Heat Lightning”, I realized that death would have to be present in all the songs in some form or another. It was unavoidable.” – Reid Bateh

“Having good ideas or hearing good ideas from the band is motivating, and also getting great feedback from fans helps reinforce what you instinctively want to do.” – Scott McDonald

“I feel like it’s much easier to project your truth onto someone or something else rather than looking inside and trying to articulate it using your own voice. Through the imagined lens of someone else, feelings and ideas are a little more malleable and there is a lot more room for play. It certainly frees one up a fair bit!” – Gus Lord

“The character in the songs basically needs to put a lot of distance between himself and Glasgow because of things he’s done but, with me I chose to come to the States in search of a bit of adventure.” – Allan McNaughton

“The themes of the record aren’t necessarily dark so I think it’s the intensity of some of the decisions on instruments and it’s a more guitar-driven record but, they’re not “safe” guitar sounds. It’s sort of wobbly like an old gramophone or something.” – James Bagshaw

“I enjoy reading scientific publications. Magazines like New Scientist, and then when something really interests me I look deeper and find the journal article it cites. We are living in a dystopia. Its amazing! How exciting. Better write another song about it!” – Albert Wolski

“The title of this album and in particular the track reflects a statement on our society between dream and despair, on an available and disposable youth, in the instantaneity and the ephemeral.” – Yann Le Razavet

“My lyrical goals were similar; the songs on Angel are about your classic tropes of love and loss but, specifically loving and losing things that are fictional and that you never had.” – Rachel Birke

“I think that this record is really special to me because I was given total freedom to do whatever I wanted with my guitar playing (for better or for worse!).” – Juan Velasquez

“I take time between releases because that’s how long it takes me to write and record – about 3 or 4 months per song. Also, there is so much music out there, I don’t think we need a new release from me every year!” – Chris Cohen

“There have been several waves of people moving away to LA, etc. because they get evicted or simply can’t afford to stay anymore. We love San Francisco so much and even though it’s changing every year, we don’t want to give up on it as it still has a scene of very talented artists and musicians. We are just waiting for this bubble to burst, at least a little bit but, sadly this is happening everywhere right now in different ways, so all we can do is adapt and keep doing what we do.” – Galine Tumasyan

“Anybody that spends a few hours a day playing an instrument for a few years can shred, but to really convey emotion with a simple part that gets stuck in your head, that takes a great ear and instinct.” – Chris King

“It feels extremely relevant considering the political climate we’re in right now,” states Lauren Matsui on choosing to cover “French Disko” by Stereolab.

“There’s sadness in everything but there is also hope everywhere you look. It’s similar to how we connect the dark aspects of life with the beauty of art and music. I’m not sure if you can even really have one without the other.” – Cole Browning

“My first true punk concert was the UK Subs who came to Lowestoft in 1980. Then I saw The Damned a bunch of times from 1980 to ’82. It was just a magical time and I am so glad I grew up when I did. I don’t think kids today get that feeling from music but I hope I’m wrong.” – Dave Hawes

“We definitely don’t see ourselves as a shoegaze or a grunge band, I find those tags to be fairly meaningless, especially as those specific genres were more scenes from a time and place rather than a sonically defined music style, but we understand why we can be labelled as that.” – David Noonan

“Whether or not my feelings or emotions are properly translated, I always hope we can evoke some sort of feeling or reaction from our listeners (even if it’s pure hatred).” – Bria Salmena

“We like Spanish, we like that we can express ourselves in different ways and have a broad language to say it. Sometimes it bothers us that simply by singing in Spanish we reach this stereotype that we do not like; “Latin alternative music”. There is no such thing, it’s just music.” – Estrella Sanchez

“The biggest struggle for me still seems to be convincing the average sound engineer that we are a rock band, not a vocal ensemble.” – Courtney Gavin

“One thing I can’t stand is when people describe music made by women as a consequence of their presumably limited skill and not as the outcome of deliberate artistic choices.” – Sydney Koke

“For some reason it can’t be explained, how to write a melancholic song – but if you write one, there is always a certain beauty, a pureness in it and the listener knows and feels, there is something very true about it. Really, a beautiful song has to be melancholic in some way, like a beautiful story always feels nostalgic too, in some way.” – Markus Nikolaus

“The album title is more or less related to the problems we had, we wanted to face them positively because they were directly affecting our daily life.” – Jazz Rodríguez Bueno on MOURN’s latest LP, ‘Ha, Ha, He.’

“Knowing there are so many hardworking people in every DIY scene makes me grateful for all the opportunities that are handed to me.” – Melina Duterte

“I’m tired of watching any musician put aside their boundaries for people who are under the illusion that we are public property. I’m not your girlfriend. My boyfriend isn’t your gymnasium.” – Aldous Harding

“I used to think that my impulse to write songs matched the very same need to write poetry or stories when I was younger. A sort of longing to abstract and simplify the disorder of emotion I felt inside.” – Charlie Hilton