February
red-foiled hearts, recent releases and cruising t-shirts
Goodbye January. Hello February. Your red-foiled chocolate hearts and longer days already make you more popular.
Save this email for a slow moment on the sofa to wander through recent highlights from the blog, plus some other stuff. Several bands from North America featured, thoughts on a few new releases, and a 29th episode of the show, digging in with heavy shoegaze then leaning towards loud calm sounds.
First, the other stuff…
Hot beverage lately: Nicaragua Maragogype drip brew, Lloyd Caffee.
Next gig: Grauzone Festival, 7 February in The Hague.
Contemplating: ReWire Festival, 9-12 April in The Hague.
Recent reads:
Hot Sounds “Michelle Mae of The Make-Up”
zensounds Vapor Talks
Kyla’s Newsletter “The Great Entertainment: Can you govern the world like a reality TV show?”
Looking forward to: Girl Scout Cookies. Olympia-5. Daylight Savings Time.
Around Amsterdam: What do you get when you mix ‘00s hipster irony and American Apparel aesthetics with Amsterdam party culture and practical Dutch fashion sensibilities? Tourist Trap powered by Bonne Suits – a local fashion brand with its own party series and DJ entourage. Bonne Suits makes ‘gender-oblivious’ clothing inspired by durable work wear. Tourist Trap revives 00s ‘indie-sleaze’ with club nights featuring electro-clash, dance punk and blog house, its main revivalists being founder Bonne Reijn and DJ consortium Not a Fan. The Bonne Suits shop and art gallery is in the heart of Amsterdam’s touristy city centre and their latest collection is inspired by Dutch maritime history. The Tourist Trap Merch Collection features four t-shirts with one-word nods to local tourist and street cultures: (party) ESCALATOR, (high) PRIORITY, (emotional) LUGGAGE and (sexual) CRUISING.
Toekomstmuziek is a relatively new music venue in Amsterdam offering “a safe environment, place and platform for people to connect with each other”. Hoping for that connection to come through “vulnerability and openness instead of ego and competitiveness” Toekomstmuziek (“future music”) sees people and their stories as the foundation of a more sustainable independent underground music scene for everybody. LA shoegazers Mo Dotti played here last year. Songkick listings suggest Mahogany and Resplandor are on the agenda for later this year.
As always, thanks for following along. May you receive many red-foiled chocolate hearts or a CRUISING t-shirt this month.
//wendy
From the blog…
Sunlight Echoes by Whitelands
As if to answer the question found at the depths of their debut album, Night-bound Eyes Are Blind To The Day, Whitelands expresses with intelligent clarity on Sunlight Echoes exactly how it feels.
episode 29
episode 29 of blank mood includes music by:
Tijuana Taxi | Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore | Jim Jarmusch & Anika | Chainlacing | Emily A. Sprague | Jo Johnson & Hilary Robinson | Drexler | Nadia Struiwigh
Upcoming release or show? New collab? Pizza thoughts? Cookie recipes? Lemme know.