Shoegaze is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. It is characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming volume. The term shoegaze was coined by the British music press to describe the stage presence of a wave of neo-psychedelic groups who stood still during live performances in a detached, introspective, non-confrontational state with their heads down. This was because the heavy use of effects pedals meant the performers were often looking down at the readouts on their pedals during concerts.
Nocturne is a live double album and video by English rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees, released on 25 November 1983 by Polydor Records in the UK, and by Geffen Records in the United States. Co-produced by Mike Hedges, Nocturne featured performances recorded at two shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London, on 30 September and 1 October 1983, featuring Robert Smith on guitar.
Chapterhouse were a British shoegazing/alternative rock band from Reading, Berkshire, England. Formed in 1987 by Andrew Sherriff and Stephen Patman, the band began performing alongside Spacemen 3. They released two albums entitled Whirlpool (1991) and Blood Music (1993). After the band split in 1994, Sherriff later formed Biocom. The group temporarily reformed in 2008 after being asked to join Ulrich Schnauss onstage to perform his cover version of their song "Love Forever" at the Truck Festival in Oxfordshire. The band finished the brief reunion with two gigs in London (2009–2010) and tours in North America and Japan in 2010.
Slowdive are an English rock band that formed in Reading, Berkshire in 1989. The band consists of Rachel Goswell on vocals and guitar, Simon Scott on drums, Neil Halstead on vocals and guitar, Nick Chaplin on bass and Christian Savill on guitar. Several other drummers also briefly played with the band, including Adrian Sell, Neil Carter and Ian McCutcheon. Halstead is the band's primary songwriter.
The Notwist are a German indie rock band. Formed in 1989, the band moved through several musical incarnations despite maintaining a relatively stable line-up. While their early records moved through heavy metal into dark indie rock, their recent efforts for which they have received the most attention have been strongly influenced by the electronica scene, along with the other groups on the record label Morr Music.
Ulrich Schnauss is a German electronic musician and producer based in London, England. In 2014, he became a member of Tangerine Dream.
Jesu are a British experimental band formed in 2003 by Justin Broadrick following the breakup of his band Godflesh. It is named after the last song on Hymns, the final album of Godflesh's initial run. Jesu's sound is heavily layered and textured, incorporating a diverse mix of influences. Broadrick himself has stated that "...it's very loosely speaking pop/rock/metal/electronica ... I'm intentionally writing what I consider to be coherent 'pop' songs".
Morr Music is an independent record label based in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1999 by Thomas Morr. Most artists on the label fall into the categories of intelligent dance music, electronica and dreampop, but all reflect Thomas Morr's personal taste. This results in a cohesive aesthetic observable in both the aural and visual elements of this label's releases.
Kirsty Hawkshaw is an English electronic music vocalist and songwriter. In addition to her work as a solo artist, she is known as the lead vocalist of early 1990s dance group Opus III, and her collaborative work with other musicians and producers.
Rachel Ann Goswell is an English singer-songwriter and musician who rose to prominence as vocalist and guitarist of the shoegaze band Slowdive, which formed in 1989. Goswell, along with Neil Halstead, Ian McCutcheon and former Chapterhouse member Simon Rowe became Mojave 3 when Slowdive transitioned to a more country/folk rock style. She released a solo album in 2004, titled Waves Are Universal on 4AD Records.
Manual is the performing name of electronic musician, Jonas Munk Jensen, from Odense, Denmark. He makes music in the style of ambient dream pop and indietronica. His sound tends to contain a mix of software synthesizers, guitars, and various digital signal processing effects. Mixing elements of pop, glitch, and indie music, Manual is compared to artists ranging from IDM artists, such as Boards of Canada, as well as shoegazer groups like Blonde Redhead.
Freudiana is a rock opera by Eric Woolfson. It was to be the 11th album by The Alan Parsons Project, but during its development, Eric Woolfson had creative differences with Alan Parsons. The production, released in 1990, utilizes the Project's personnel as well as many guest vocalists. Alan Parsons later began his career as a solo artist with his 1993 album Try Anything Once, which was musically in a direction more or less continued from that of the Project's 1987's Gaudi.
Global Underground 030: Paris is a DJ mix album in the Global Underground series, compiled and mixed by DJ and producer Nick Warren, which was inspired by his performance at the Mix Club in Paris, on 14 October 2006. The album is Warren's seventh release in the Global Underground series.
Ask Me Tomorrow is the debut album by Mojave 3, released by 4AD on 16 October 1995 in the UK and on 16 January 1996 in the US. The album was released roughly eight months after the release of Pygmalion, the third studio album by Mojave 3 founders Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell, and Ian McCutcheon's previous band Slowdive.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is a live album released by English heavy metal band Venom in 1986. It contains partial recordings of two different concerts with two different setlists. The first disc contains a show recorded at Hammersmith Odeon in London on 8 October 1985 and the second disc recorded at The Ritz in New York City on 4 and 5 April 1986. The title Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is German for "A Little Night Music". The title is taken from Mozart's piece of the same name.
These Hopeful Machines is the sixth studio album by American electronic musician BT. Released on February 1, 2010, the album sees collaborations with the likes of JES, Rob Dickinson, Christian Burns and Kirsty Hawkshaw, also featuring a cover of "The Ghost in You" by The Psychedelic Furs. Because some tracks exceed 10 minutes in length, the album spans two discs with six tracks on each. In an effort to make the album more accessible to casual listeners, the record was eventually re-issued as a single-disc version with shorter tracks, titled These Humble Machines. In addition, the album would later spawn a double disc remix edition titled These Re-Imagined Machines, also featured as a "Limited Collector's Edition Box Set". With great reception from critics, the album was nominated for the 2011 Grammy Awards under Best Electronic/Dance Album.
Insides is the third studio album by English musician and producer Jon Hopkins. Released on 5 May 2009, it reached No. 15 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Album Chart in 2009. PopMatters listed the album as one of the top ten electronic albums of 2009.
Misty Medley is the second full-length album by the Montreal indie rock band Kiss Me Deadly, released in October 2005 by Alien8 Recordings. Working with The Besnard Lakes' Jace Lasek, the band included reworked versions of the four songs on their 2005 EP Amoureux Cosmiques that featured "breathy vocals, saturated pop tones and melodies motorized by punk", according to The Montreal Mirror. Misty Medley spent several weeks on the Canadian "National Campus Top 50 Chart" published by ChartAttack, debuting at #25. The band toured the U.S. the following year in support of the album, alongside Voxtrot and We Are Wolves. Critics particularly noted the four aptly-named "Dance" tracks, with "Dance 1" and "Dance 4" also proving to be the most popular with listeners.
Guido Dessauer was a German physicist, specialized in paper engineering, a business executive, writer, art collector, patron of arts, and academic. Born into a family of paper industrialists, he worked as an aerospace engineer during World War II and was an executive of the family's coloured paper factory in Aschaffenburg from 1945. He was an honorary citizen of Austria for saving 300 jobs in Styria in the 1960s. He earned a Ph.D. from the Graz University of Technology in his late 50s and became an honorary professor there. Interested in art, he collected bozzetti for 50 years and initiated the career of Horst Janssen as a lithographer.
