Just as you can trace any art form or idea’s cultural exchange and global movement, you can do so with modern music. As I sit here writing these words in a medium-sized railway town in the Thames Valley, I find it intriguing and amazing how far shoegaze, in particular, has traveled and how popular it remains, given that this region is in many ways its spiritual home having birthed Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, and Swervedriver to name but four.
Earlier this week, I put pen to paper on behalf of a shoegaze band from Egypt and now, with Plastic Ideas, I find that the form is also gaining popularity in Turkey.
“Afterglow,” which kicks the album off, neatly displays the extremes that the band works with. The song wanders from spacious guitar lines to squealing walls of noise and back again as heavenly choirs and human voices ebb and flow.
There are less effect-drenched songs, such as the delicate, bedroom-indie of “Some Days” and driving post-punkery with the Cure-like sounds of “Yıldızlar Düştü Gökyüzünden. “ With “Cold Breeze,” we are faced with something slower, brooding, and almost darkwave in nature. The album ends with the anthemic tones, ethereal treatments, and graceful textures of “Don’t Let Them Bring You Down.”
Because of the passing of time and the miles traveled, there is nothing here too reminiscent of those iconic bands I mentioned, but that is as it should be; that is how sounds and styles move with the times, evolve, and remain vibrant. Afterglow is the sound of all that happening, the sound of new musicians writing new musical chapters for a whole new audience.
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