I half wonder why anyone continues to create new dream pop music, and it\u2019s not because I dislike the luxurious musical genre. Dream pop\u2019s not done correctly unless it references its distinctive forefathers \u2013 Cocteau Twins, Julee Cruise, Bryan Ferry \u2013 but once a band does this, isn\u2019t it simply recreating a sound definitively done by others? Any modern dream pop band worth a damn is more or less a tribute band.<\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t make Still Corners latest release Strange Pleasures any less an accomplishment, but you must know going in that songwriter\/producer Greg Hughes and vocalist Tessa Murray aren\u2019t creating new ground, just solidifying the one that\u2019s been there for decades. Strange Pleasures is a lush delight down memory lane which occasionally finds an off-ramp of true originality. Despite this, it\u2019s a road well worth taking.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Trip\u201d opens the proceedings, a track that belies the 11 songs which follow. It carries the dream-pop feel but at twice the speed, a bouncy beat quickly joined by a warm, echo guitar with Robert Smith overtones. It\u2019s almost two minutes in before Murray coos in with her dulcet voice (insert obvious Elizabeth Fraser reference here), but it captures the listener at once. It\u2019s a strong first track (albeit it a tad too long).<\/p>\n
It follows with two songs from the Cocteau Twins playbook, as \u201cBeginning to Blue\u201d and \u201cI Can\u2019t Sleep\u201d are mirror images of \u201cFrom the Flagstones\u201d from Cocteau\u2019s The Pink Opaque (dream pop\u2019s Revolver) and \u201cFor Phoebe Still A Baby\u201d from Blue Bell Knoll (dream pop\u2019s Sgt. Pepper\u2019s). I appreciate the effort, and \u201cBlue\u201d and \u201cSleep\u201d are solid pieces of work, but the similarities are obvious. \u201cAll I Know\u201d is eerie and lucid, a perfect fit for Bryan Ferry\u2019s solo opus Boys and Girls.<\/p>\n
But then Hughes opens up his bag of tricks with \u201cFireflies,\u201d a mix of oriental synths, cascading cymbals and Murray\u2019s multi-tracks of soaring lyrics. The evocative \u201cGoing Back to Strange\u201d employs a lilting acoustic guitar amid an ethereal string background, letting Murray\u2019s voice serve as the dominant instrument. The title track, the album\u2019s final song, is reminiscent of Washed Out \u2013 it\u2019s as if the album moved from past to present as it moved along its paces. Still Corners recognizes it doesn\u2019t want to be stuck in one.<\/p>\n
In some ways it\u2019s not fair for me to review this, my pull toward dream pop has lasted for decades \u2013 my admiration of Cruise\u2019s Floating into the Night and anything produced by the Cocteau Twins in the \u201980s usurps all others who work to mimic those sounds.<\/p>\n
But someone not steeped in the history of dream pop could hear Strange Pleasures and be elevated to a soothing nirvana \u2013 which would be just fine by me. Still Corners has created an art worth savoring, even if it sometimes leaves you craving a taste for the ones who came before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I half wonder why anyone continues to create new dream pop music, and it\u2019s not because I dislike the luxurious musical genre. Dream pop\u2019s not done correctly unless it references its distinctive forefathers \u2013 Cocteau Twins, Julee Cruise, Bryan Ferry \u2013 but once a band does this, isn\u2019t it simply recreating a sound definitively done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[419,420],"class_list":["post-1398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-still-corners","tag-strange-pleasures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1400,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions\/1400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}