Utrecht's Elegies and Tokyo's Midnight Shoegaze [Stereo Current]

[00:00] Sloane Rivera: The needle drops, the dust clears, and suddenly you're somewhere else entirely. [00:06] Sloane Rivera: I am Sloan Rivera. [00:08] Julian Vance: And I'm Julian Vance. [00:10] Julian Vance: This is Stereocurrent, your daily frequency for the sounds that actually matter in a world of digital noise. [00:16] Sloane Rivera: Julian, I feel like we've spent the morning waiting through ghosts. [00:21] Sloane Rivera: There's a certain haunting quality to everything on the desk today. [00:25] Sloane Rivera: Music that doesn't just ask for your attention, it demands your empathy. [00:30] Julian Vance: It's a heavy stack, Sloan. [00:32] Julian Vance: We're moving from the quiet apple trees of Utrecht to the neon-slicked streets of Tokyo. [00:38] Julian Vance: Let's start with something that stopped me in my tracks, Fawns and the Chargers. [00:43] Sloane Rivera: In Our Yard stands an apple tree. [00:46] Sloane Rivera: It's a title that feels like a folk tale, but the reality is much more visceral. [00:51] Sloane Rivera: Fawns' sleeker has taken the tragedy of losing an unborn child and turned it into this [00:57] Sloane Rivera: gorgeous, heart-wrenching crooner ballad. [00:59] Julian Vance: The vulnerability is staggering. [01:02] Julian Vance: You hear those orchestral strings and that soft acoustic guitar, [01:06] Julian Vance: and it immediately puts me in mind of Neil Hannon's structural grace. [01:10] Julian Vance: It's cinematic, but in a way that feels intensely private. [01:14] Sloane Rivera: He says loss and grief are just forms of love, [01:18] Sloane Rivera: and you hear that in the lyrics. [01:20] Sloane Rivera: You were no bigger than an apple seed, so in our yard we placed an apple tree. [01:25] Sloane Rivera: It's a literal and metaphorical monument. [01:29] Sloane Rivera: It's devastatingly beautiful, Julian. [01:31] Julian Vance: And speaking of artists who transmute pain into something tactile, we have to talk about Banypreet. [01:38] Julian Vance: Her new track, Bit More Than I Could Chew, is an absolute alchemy of genres. [01:43] Sloane Rivera: Mm-hmm. Bonaprete is a fascinating case study in lived experience. [01:49] Sloane Rivera: She's now in New York, but her voice carries everything. [01:52] Sloane Rivera: Sikh temple hymns, Punjabi folk, Bollywood, and Western songwriting. [01:57] Sloane Rivera: It's what you might call shantous folk. [02:00] Julian Vance: It's a cabaret magnetism, really. [02:03] Julian Vance: She's been a flight attendant, a florist, a henna artist. [02:06] Julian Vance: She even lived the van life before her heartbreak pulled her back to music. [02:10] Julian Vance: You can hear that bruising self-awareness in her delivery. [02:15] Sloane Rivera: It's Oscar-worthy performance art within a folk structure. [02:19] Sloane Rivera: She's not just singing, she's spitting out the weight of what she's lived. [02:23] Sloane Rivera: It feels like a pivotal moment for her. [02:25] Julian Vance: And speaking of artists who transmute pain into something tactile, we have to talk about [02:31] Julian Vance: blasphemy. [02:32] Julian Vance: We've got a global collective called Hellcourn Warriors with a track called Endless Road. [02:38] Sloane Rivera: This is Berlin meets Italy meets Colombia. [02:42] Sloane Rivera: It's moody, it's post-punk, and it wears its sisters of mercy influence like a well-worn [02:47] Sloane Rivera: leather jacket. [02:48] Sloane Rivera: Julian, it's pure dark wave allure. [02:51] Julian Vance: Wait, what total Sisters of Mercy vibes, but I also caught glimpses of the Chameleons UK and Tom Marauder's vocals. [02:59] Julian Vance: It's got that sky is bleeding foreboding imagery. [03:02] Julian Vance: Perfect for a late-night drive where you don't really want to arrive anywhere. [03:06] Sloane Rivera: The interplay between those pulsing guitars and the prancing synths, [03:10] Sloane Rivera: it's got a very specific kind of late-night tension. [03:14] Sloane Rivera: It's about perseverance, which is a nice counter note to the escapism we see elsewhere. [03:18] Julian Vance: Hey, speaking of night drives, let's head to Tokyo. [03:22] Julian Vance: Uh, rainbow belts, yes, all caps, just dropped their third single, 246. [03:28] Julian Vance: It's named after the highway, yeah? [03:29] Sloane Rivera: Exactly. [03:30] Sloane Rivera: Route 246. [03:32] Sloane Rivera: It's modern dream rock with a shoegaze heart. [03:35] Sloane Rivera: It captures that exact atmospheric intimacy of being in a moving car at midnight. [03:40] Sloane Rivera: Gauzy guitar layers and a pulse that feels like tires on asphalt. [03:45] Julian Vance: I love the Hold Me Tight segment. [03:47] Julian Vance: There's a yearning there that feels very classic, but the fuzz and the warming guitar layers keep it firmly in that modern shoegaze grunge territory. [03:56] Julian Vance: It's escapist, but grounded. [03:58] Sloane Rivera: It's a debut as a solidified four-piece, and you can hear that chemistry in the final minute with the intertwining vocals. [04:05] Sloane Rivera: It's incredibly satisfying. [04:07] Sloane Rivera: Um, Julian, I know you appreciate precision. [04:11] Sloane Rivera: Rina Khorosova is a Moscow Conservatory graduate, and her new EP, colon, Ravel Sonatine, is [04:20] Sloane Rivera: anything but hazy. [04:21] Julian Vance: Yep. [04:22] Julian Vance: She's stripping away the impressionistic haze people usually associate with Ravel. [04:26] Julian Vance: She's going for structural urgency and rhythmic clarity. [04:30] Julian Vance: It's high-tension, meticulously controlled piano. [04:33] Sloane Rivera: The first movement, Modere, feels like rapid snowfall. [04:37] Sloane Rivera: It's wintry and brisk, but then it opens up into this lusher introspection. [04:43] Sloane Rivera: It's amazing how she finds the contemporary edge in something written over a century ago. [04:48] Julian Vance: It's brilliant. [04:49] Julian Vance: And if we're talking about tension, we have to look at Hartlepool. [04:52] Julian Vance: The band Crescent just released Millogather, Parts 1 and 2 on Shy Bairn Records. [04:57] Sloane Rivera: This is a two-part conversation on intimacy. [05:01] Sloane Rivera: Part 1 is blues-tinged psychedelia with these wordless soaring vocals. [05:06] Sloane Rivera: It's got a rollicking rock pole that feels very coastal, very expansive. [05:12] Julian Vance: But part two is where they really lean into the hypnotic. [05:14] Julian Vance: It starts with that throbbing bass and light percussion, then explodes into this hard-rocking ardor. [05:21] Julian Vance: It's high-tension momentum that feels completely earned. [05:24] Sloane Rivera: Millie Jones has such a charismatic lead. [05:27] Sloane Rivera: Whether it's the jangle of part one or the distortion of part two, her soulfulness is the anchor. [05:33] Sloane Rivera: It's an incredibly strong debut. [05:35] Julian Vance: It really is. [05:35] Julian Vance: It's been a day of heavy hitters, Sloan. [05:37] Julian Vance: From the orchard in Utrecht to the highways of Tokyo, the indie scene is feeling particularly... [05:43] Julian Vance: Substantial right now. [05:46] Sloane Rivera: Substantial and deeply, deeply human. [05:49] Sloane Rivera: You can check out more details at stereocurrent.neuralnewscast.com. [05:54] Sloane Rivera: That's our roundup for today. [05:55] Sloane Rivera: I'm Sloan Rivera. [05:56] Julian Vance: And I'm Julian Vance. [05:58] Julian Vance: Keep your ears open and your stylus clean. [06:01] Julian Vance: We'll see you tomorrow on Stereocurrent. [06:04] Julian Vance: Neural Newscast is AI-assisted, human-reviewed. [06:07] Julian Vance: View our AI transparency policy at neuralnewscast.com.