I first came across Kiwi shoegaze artist, Tamaryn, in 2012. I downloaded a free promotional single, "Heavenly Bodies" off of her second album, "Tender New Signs". I loved it immediately with its swirling guitars and soft vocals. It was evident that this was a Cocteau Twins rip-off, but I did not begrudge this. I think it is fantastic when artists today pay homage to my favorite group of all time. The song was good enough that I always intended on checking out the whole album, but I never got around to it.
It was a pleasant surprise when Tamaryn released a third album called "Cranekiss" to good reviews. Last year, she embarked on a tour with pioneer shoegaze band, Lush - their first in twenty years. Over the last year, I have had the pleasure of listening to the album. Tamaryn has shown that she can successfully transcend the shoegaze genre and make a resplendent and satisfying pop album.
Tamaryn with members of Lush
"Cranekiss", the principal single, has the same Cocteau Twins flare that "Heavenly Bodies" had - scintillating guitars with heavy reverb, a strong Will Heggie-style bass line, and Tamaryn doing vocal acrobatics. But "Hands All Over Me" takes a markedly different turn, a mouth-watering synthpop tune in the vein of Chvrches or Phantogram. "Last" is another delectable poptart, faintly reminiscent of Kitten, in other words, not very goth or shoegaze at all, but very dream pop with some Tears For Fears hooks and Tamaryn doing some gravity-defying vocal scales. "Collection" continues the effervescent new wave swell, sounding kind of like Altered Images. "Keep Calling" takes a shift for the melancholy, reminding us that this band is from a genre on the darker side of the melancholy spectrum - a beautiful ballad but with a strong, New Order-style bass. The song shimmers with moodiness. "Softcore" is still my favorite selection off this record, going full goth - a spooky bass line, scracthy guitars, and yet it is oddly danceable.
Cranekiss
"Fade Away Slow" goes all shoegaze with the vocals nothing but a hoarse whisper fed through reverb. The music is a dull hiss, dragging along like an echo of the lyrics, but carried forward with a down-tempo synth beat. "I Won't Be Found" continues with the ethereal - impressionistic guitars with voices like wish crashing on a mountainside, the music just a whisper of leaves blown off the peat moss. "Sugar Fix" is by far one of my favorites as well, and probably one of the most Cocteau of the songs on here with its candy guitars and pummeling bass and dance beat offset by Tamaryn's sweet and diaphanous voice. "Intruder (Waking You Up)" starts with an insistent thrum set over watery guitars, flashes of light shining on the water.
Tamaryn really isn't covering new territory, for those who know the genre, but she is bringing it to a new and younger audience. God bless her for it. It is a pleasant rehash of things that have faded under the unkind glare of time. Lately, I have listening to newer and harsher versions of shoegaze like A Place To Bury Strangers, a band that takes the gentleness and buries it under distortion. Tamaryn is an earlier recollection of shoegaze, chaff blowing on the summer wind. But in times of winter, this is the stuff you dream about. I like how she has almost given two tones to this album. The first half is light and effervescent, and the second is darker and moodier. Kind of like life.
Back in the day, the official magazine of Tower Records - Pulse - had a section called "The Desert Island Top 10". The premise is - if you were stranded on a desert island, but had the option of taking ten of anything, what would you take? For the Halloween season, for this post, I will select my Top 10 favorite gothic songs of all time, in no particular order. Yes, I cut my teeth on '80s gothic. Wore the black lipstick, the guyliner and sported the obligatory black, read the Anne Rice chronicles. These are the songs I would die for. Prepared to be spooked! Tell me your favorite songs in the comments section!
1. Christian Death "Figurative Theater"(1982) - As a teen, there was nothing more shocking than L.A. deathrock band, Christian Death, and singer, Rozz Williams, who was occasionally known to wear dead cats as part of his scene's morbid couture. "In the shallow holes of a thousand eyes..." start the lyrics to a song that I copied onto notebooks as an angst-ridden teen, the words seemingly matching the black mood I felt. The violent drumbeat and lurching guitar set to Rozz's droning voice, all of it churning together and frothing to a spitting intensity. It sounded forbidden then. It kind of sounds dated now, although it is easy to see the influence they have had on music through the decades. It was still a sad day in 1998 when Rozz Williams committed suicide, finally giving into the darkness. Rozz was no poseur. He truly walked in the darkness.
2. 45 Grave "Evil" (1983)- "Music that Christians don't have to play backwards," says the announcer in the video below. And that description fits yet another California deathrock band, 45 Grave. This band was always really fun, a clever mixture of '60s surf rock, punk, and horror, they had a stage presence that was as much a part of their performance as their music, fronted by sinister frontwoman, Dinah Cancer, looking like something out of The Addams Family. Although "Evil" sounds like it could be the opening theme from The Munsters, except with Cancer growling her condemnations of, "You're evil!". "Sleep In Safety" was an important album to me in my preteen years and remains, all these decades later, the perfect Halloween album.
3. Tamaryn "Softcore" (2016) - Kiwi artist, Tamaryn, now on tour with Lush, is one of the newer artists at the forefront of the shoegaze revival, but she is known to veer into darker directions, like this gothic gem. The song is off this year's album, and the video here is off of this year's live KEXP performance. Amped-up drums and a caustic bass line sounding like something right out of Sisters of Mercy, Tamaryn's haunted moaning, and guitars screeching, whispered samples, everything coalescing and blending into something that resembles a fevered pitch - something at once beautiful, disturbing, and cool af. Tamaryn is a new artist that you should definitely check out. I will be reviewing her entire new album soon.
4. Xmal Deutschland "Polarlicht" (1986) - An oft forgotten German act, they signed to the prestigious 4AD label who was responsible for releasing much of the gothic bands of the '80s. This song made in onto a mix cassette tape I had as a teen, and I soon had a chance to explore more of their music. The song is mournful and dreamy with Anja Huwe's powerful voice soaring above the landscape, but don't expect to understand it unless you speak German, Sadly, this band never made it out of the '80s, but their impact on gothic and darkwave is undeniable. Any true fan of the genre can tell you about Xmal Deutschland.
5. Cocteau Twins "Garlands" (1982) - Ah, which one of my collections would be complete without Cocteau Twins? This song is off of their debut album. They were a new band out of Grangemouth, Scotland, and this is the only album to feature Will Heggie as a member with his heavy bass guitar. He would soon leave to form proto-shoegaze band, Lowlife. His departure would allow them to explore the more ethereal experiments that they are known for. But this album? Straight up gothic. Heggie's bass chords dominate. Robin Guthrie scratches out spooky noises on his guitar, admitting only later that he only did this because he really didn't know how to play. Elizabeth Fraser's wavering voice offers the names of pretty flowers in a way that they evoke wrongness rather than beauty. This whole album is a classic and one that I listen to several times a year.
6. Modern English "16 Days" (1981) - When people think of Modern English, they think of MTV, '80s one-hit wonders, and their one big hit, "I Melt With You", a happy-go-lucky love tune. They don't think of a gothic band, and, yet, their first album was just that. The song starts out with eerie guitar effects that only grow more nightmarish as the song progresses, followed by samples extolling the horrors of the Cold War era. The bass line is earth-shattering, and Robbie Grey spits out his lyrics in a post-punk fury. Then the song ends in a wash of futile noise and chaos. This Mortal Coil would later cover this song as their very first single, with Liz Fraser from Cocteau Twins and Gordon Sharp from Cindytalk, another great goth band, on vocals.
7. Bauhaus "She's In Parties" (1983) - No goth collection would be complete without Bauhaus? But whereas most might expect me to include the ubiquitous and Halloween-friendly "Bela Lugosi's Dead", the goth anthem, no, I am including this selection instead - the final single from their final album for more than twenty years. These guys created this sound, created this genre. Peter Murphy's vocals are savage, contrasting Daniel Ash's soft background pining. The harmonica seems out of place, and yet Bauhaus offers one last stark masterpiece before venturing into different projects. Believe me - Tones On Tail or Love & Rockets would have made it onto this list had I not already covered these bands extensively.
8. Dead Can Dance - "De Profundis (Out of the Depths of Sorrow)" (1985) - The very first time I heard Dead Can Dance was this song. It was a life-changing experience. I was blown away. I never knew pop music could be so... panoramic. The song goes from silence and explodes into an orchestral swathe so huge that you can't help see images, and then Lisa Gerrard's voice crashes like a hurricane against a mountainside, singing, not in words, but pure emotion. Then the song unravels with a single male singing a wordless Gregorian chant alongside the peals of a bell that sound not so much monastic as pagan. Dead Can Dance defy classification, but it was the goths who loved them first.
9. Sisters of Mercy "Black Planet" (1985) - The album this song came from became so definitively known as "goth" that everyone that came afterwards tried to imitate this sound - even Andrew Eldritch. By the way, this is my favorite lineup of the Sisters, which includes the creative force of Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams, who went on to form The Mission UK right after this album. In this song, Hussey's guitars are crystal clear with the Celtic lilt that he is known for, and Eldritch sings in that wavering, spooky bass that would be imitated by goths forever after.
10. The Cure "Lullaby" (1989) - I had a hard time picking the last band, because there are so many goth artists that I love. But I had to ultimately settle on the most Halloweeny of songs. The Cure had developed the reputation of being dark and gothic, but, in truth, by the time "Disintegration" came along, the band had veered into some very un-gothic territories involving caterpillars, love cats, being hot hot hot, and kisses. Imagine Robert Smith prancing around in a huge teddy bear suit. It was enough to make me shake my head. But with this song - and accompanying creepy video - The Cure went dark and gothic again. Maybe even more gothic than they had previously been. All of the black-clad minions breathed a sigh of relief. Smith sings about being eaten in his bed by a thousand shivering holes all set to the rhythm of pizzicato violins. The song was nightmarish and troubling, and the band redeemed the genre to live for another Halloween.
