Tag Archives: shoegaze

The Self-Hating Hipster’s Top 50 Albums of 2013

26 Mar

2013 Albums
Two years ago (and change) I compiled a list of  the Top 11 Albums of 2011.  Last year I put together the Top 12 Albums of 2012.  Both articles were compiled of selections culled from lists of approximately 40 albums respectively.  After not publishing an article in six months I decided that those once dedicated SHH readers deserved something much more comprehensive for 2013.  Instead of publishing a predictably titled Self-Hating Hipster’s Top 13 Albums of 2013 three weeks into January of 2014 I would, as I am wont to do, aim way too high and likely disappoint myself–a Top 50!

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The First Quarter of 2013 in Music

14 Jun

Almost exactly three months ago I posted this article with a list of twenty albums in alphabetical order which I had purchased in the first quarter of 2013.  The intent was to have the article out by mid-April.  In classic SHH fashion I decided that it would be better to do a review of twenty albums Continue reading

Purity Ring – Shrines

14 Aug

Purity Ring is the Montreal-based duo of Megan James and Corin Roddick. Since forming in 2010 they released four singles prior to their debut, Shrines. The first, “Ungirthed,” garnered them some deserved attention in early 2011 while Purity Ring was still a relative internet unknown Continue reading

Indie Canon Inductee: Black Tambourine

31 May

Most people think of Beck’s Guero when they hear “Black Tambourine,” but Black Tambourine was a band long before a song, and a musical anomaly at that.  The four-piece of Pam Berry, Brian Nelson, Archie Moore and Michael Schulman formed in the greater Washington D.C. area in 1989, recorded a total of ten original songs, played a small handful of live shows and then disbanded in early 1992.  They released only two EPs and Continue reading

Lotus Plaza – Spooky Action at a Distance

16 Apr

Lotus Plaza is the solo project of Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt.  Spooky Action at a Distance is Pundt’s second release after 2009’s very bright but somewhat washed-out debut, The Floodlight Collective.  Like Deerhunter frontman and bandmate Bradford Cox did with last year’s Parallax (#2 on my Top 11 Albums of 2011), Lockett Pundt proves once again that members of busy bands can produce wonderful things on their own time.  It should also be noted that the outspoken Pundt may be the Continue reading

Disappears – Pre Language

9 Apr

Chicago’s Disappears has been busy, busy.  Three albums in three years: 2010’s Lux, 2011’s Guider and this year’s Pre Language.  Disappears is admittedly not doing anything new.  Their three albums reclaim late 60’s garage rock (the Velvet Underground aesthetic on Lux and the White Light, White Heat structure of Guider), early 70’s proto punk and Krautrock, late 70’s post punk (particularly The Fall and Wire) and early 90’s shoegaze.  Their sound also incorporates elements of frontman Brian Case’s former band The Ponys.

Pre Language wasn’t exactly what I expected Continue reading