Tag Archives: Darkwave

Introducing The Space Has Always Reduced Me To Silence by Cielo Oceano

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I have written about Tom Lugo’s musical projects in the past. This guy keeps getting better. He also serves other interesting pursuits like martial arts. I even featured him in one of my health/fitness blogs in the past. It’s fascinating how something that you are passionate about can carry you through all the changing seasons of life. It’s like, you can undergo a lot of tests and still be the complete person that you are, especially in the presence of music.

Cielo Oceano is such an auspicious debut-more so as I am writing this blog at 5 am in the comfort of my bedroom. I also added yellow LED lights that resemble fireflies in the corner last night. I did not know how, but it seems my subconscious has picked this album up for review today. Everything seems to fall into place. The mood, the time, the coldness outside, or the pervading sense of peace and hints of melancholy. This music is like little dancing lights in the pond of one’s existence. It is so easy to tap into that because I embrace this kind of musical style.
The Space has Always Reduced Me To Silence is the title of the debut album. It contains ten songs. I suggest you listen to it, at the same time as I do. You can also do it for meditation because the music is hypnotic. It focuses on dreamy and shimmery guitars. The same things that you can find in any Robin Guthrie and Simon Reymonde(Cocteau Twins) projects. I am on the third track, which is the title track; and I love how they end and start each song seamlessly. There is nothing that jolts you out from one mood to another. The production decision is consistent. This is the kind of band where the lyrics are secondary, as the mood is more important. This also reminds me a bit of Brian Eno, in the ambient style department. Nada mas que decir is a personal favorite because it has an 80’s nostalgic aesthetics to it.
This album is a must for people who are into bands like This Mortal Coil and Souls Whirling Somewhere.
I love Cielo Oceano and will be looking for their future releases and incarnations. It is great music to start the day. Let’s dive into this beautiful, sad, exciting, lush sonic voyage and come out better and stronger!

This album is also available on cassette tape.

https://open.spotify.com/album/3FocrdTVIhsf2glEgOwBo2?fbclid=IwAR3H2zivOxPU81ZGi2m-CSY3c_RU_J-NPOwn90a8lwWZEawtFl9K8RxRMf0

https://jakjonsontapes.bandcamp.com

GenreDream Pop, Shoegaze, Indie Pop

Band MembersAndres Lugo- Guitars, Synths, Programming
Tom Lugo- Guitars, Bass Programming, Vocals

HometownBaltimore/Philadelphia via Puerto Rico

Record LabelPatetico Recordings

AboutEthereal Dream Pop project by Andres Lugo (Pneuma/Los Dientes Hundidos En La Garganta) & Tom Lugo (Stellarscope/Panophonic/MAYU/Under The Wire/ShiShi/SUPERTOYS/Patetico Recordings)

Pledgemusic with the March Violets: Mortality Tour and Album

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One of the influential bands in the darkwave genre, the March Violets have an album coming out. And this is possible because of your help. There are many things coming up from this beautiful band. There’s the Mortality tour(which happens to be the name of the upcoming album) and also goodies that they are giving out when you make your pledge.

October is a good month for this type of music. The Goth in me loves it. And I am sure the children of darkness out there are going to like the new album, Mortality. Here’s the message from the band:

The ‘Mortality Tour and Album’ is the new Pledge from the March Violets. Throughout October pledgers get to experience a month of touring around the East Coast, with Backstage Action, Road Movie high jinx and other Purple nonsense. The Violets will be playing classic tracks live, then recording them in November in Chicago. With exclusive daily footage and a virtual Access Pass pledgers will be able to participate in the highs and lows of the entire Tour and Studio Saga. The involvement continues right up to Xmas, with an Advent Calendar with interesting Violet goodies behind each door, culminating in the Album download on Xmas day! 
Physical ‘exclusives’, that will be shipped after Xmas, include a Double CD, a Vinyl LP and a double DVD with a full concert, a road movie, and footage from the entire life of the band, right back to the early Eighties. It’s a new way of touring that DOES come to your home town, social media at its rocking best. Support the Violets, Pledge Purple! Many Thanks.

The link is here: http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/mortality

Snake Dance is one track that introduced me to their music.

Carisa Bianca Mellado Releases New Album “Kore” On Magic Monster Record

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Once in a while an artist with a unique voice arrives in the scene. Suddenly, music is exciting once again! Where have all these great artists gone? I used to asked this question to my self as the 90s came to a close. They no longer make music like Cocteau Twins, or The Sundays. It’s all about ” the louder the better.”image

Then enters Carisa Bianca Mellado. She possesses an ethereal voice and her melodies proved to be utterly beautiful. Her single is Human Things. This is taken from her album Kore. The single has an accompanying music video which is freaking awesome! If you’re a child of the 80s then you will be hooked to her style as she provides a sonic world that is expensive and artfully textured!

Here’s an excerpt from her press release:
Carisa Bianca Mellado’s latest record, Kore, follows the story of a Sirian Dolphin Princess who goes through the underworld journey of being born on Earth as a human girl. The album title, which means ‘girl’ or ‘maiden’ is also another name for the Greek Goddess Persephone and the album explores themes of birth, sex, death, desire, intoxication, the shadow self, love, rebirth and surrender through the mythic stories of Persephone, Inanna, Psyche and the cosmic creation myth of Eros.

Set to music that marries diverse influences, such as Cocteau Twins and Cyndi Lauper, Kore is at once catchy and challenging, presenting an atmosphere unique to the record yet instantly definable: a dreamy shoegaze pink goth pop space opera that seamlessly transcends into sultry swaying death jazz.

Carisa Bianca Mellado is an experimental singer, performer and composer of her own brand of shoegaze, post-punk, dream pop, black opera music. The descendent of legendary opera singers Antonio Tambourini, Giulia Tambourini, she began singing at the age of 3.
Originally from Melbourne, Australia, now based in Los Angeles, California, Carisa Bianca Mellado began performing at a very early age and began composing songs at the age of 12. She got her start singing and playing bass in a variety of punk and post-punk projects, most notably The Time of the Assassins who released the sprawling darkness of the Steve Albini-recorded Awake in Slumberland prior to disbanding in 2008.
Upon relocating to Los Angeles, Carisa collaborated with a wide range of musicians including members of The Centimeters, The Deadfly Ensemble, and Loto Ball, as well as focusing on recording and releasing her albums

and performing with her band, Seth Styles on guitar and Elle Haert on synth and backing vocals.

Links:

Website: http://carisabiancamellado.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Carisa-Bianca-Mellado/116164875135015
Bandcamp: https://carisabiancamellado.bandcamp.com

Nostalgia Kisses The Future with Shades of Sadness and Sorrow by Stellarscope

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Yup, nothing could represent the power of indie music that Philadelphia’s own Stellarscope. They are back with a new album called Shades of Sadness and Sorrow. They are improving on the sound that defines them as a band: a combination of 80’s post punk, dream pop and Gothic atmosphere. a2476030429_10

There are 10 songs from this album. Shades of Sadness and Sorrow is their latest release after The End is Near. I’m Not Prepared (March 2014). The album will be officially launched early this March 2015. It is amazing that the Shades of Sadness and Sorrow sounds complex considering that there are only two personnel under Stellarscope: Tom Lugo and Bob Forman.

The recording is so lo-fi you would think you are listening to a cassette tape from some obscure 80s band. And that’s the way I like it. In a way it is a trip to the bast while at the same time the subject is very much relevant to what’s going on in the world. The vocals sound like they could have been recorded inside an abandoned factory as you can notice in the echo.

Dug this Hole greets us with its energetic style plastic through speakers. Perhaps this might be the band’s carrier single. We will see. It is hard to choose which track stands out. There’s Never Hated Like This (which I can personally relate to following the tragic personal events in my life three years ago). Although I think Living in a Haze is my favorite of all. I love the hazy guitar sounds that encircle the song creating a plasma of stellar radiation amidst the pulsing rhythm.

Farewell sounds like an intro from either a Sioux’s or old Cure song. I don’t know how to describe it…but classy could a fitting word. The Mansonisque Eat Your Heart Out sounds a bit chaotic but the drums are crunchy like spicy peanuts. After the aggression and robust sounds of the previous tracks, It’s All Gone Slows the pace. The glorious guitars of Soul Disturbances reminds me a bit of Bauhaus especially that the singing is unmistakably Peter Murphy. I love it! Face the Dirt closes this carousel ride with high notes.

Stellarscope proves that what is beautiful about rock in the 80’s is here to stay. And it is a joy to be showered by music like this at a time when everything feels bland.

Dominion – Storm

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Happy Dark Valentines  to you all.

* Doi Porras- Vox . Lyrics
* Michael Ramos- Guitars
*Arnel Paminiano-Bass
* Dave Jurgens: Drums
* Ollie Palma – Keyboards

Sometimes when you look too long into the abyss, and it looks back at you…the result isn’t really a bad thing. Because something haunting and beautiful comes out of it. Such is an example of Dominion’s music. Dominion are composed of Filipino musicians who happened to grow up listening to the music of The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees and tons of bands from the Darkwave genre.

“Formed in Manila, The Philippines around the early Nineties , Dominion came and defined themselves from every other band of that moment by delivering a unique look and sound very uncommon of that place and time, allegedly celebrated by the Media and Fans in their Motherland as “the Philippine forefathers of Goth rock”, The Band views this fondly in the words of frontman Doi Porras as ” It’s all Rock and Roll to Me ” qouted in Major Filipino Rock mag ; PULP Magazine.”

Storm is embellished  by dark melodies and haunting keyboards courtesy of Ollie Palma. Lead vocalist Doi Poras reminds me a bit of the result when an unholy matrimony happens between Robert Smith of The Cure and Wayne Hussey of The Mission. The drums, bass and guitars are aggressive but sophisticated. Yes that’s Goth beauty for you-along with the term haunting.

More here: http://www.facebook.com/dominionrockband