by Fazerdaze
Fazerdaze Morningside (PBS Feature Record)
Fazerdaze started like a lot of good things do – as a bedroom recording project, presumably with no designs on NME features and international tours. But the world caught on early to Amelia Murray’s dreamy guitar pop via her self-released 2014 EP Fazerdaze, so her first full-length Morningside arrives (on NZ’s legendary Flying Nun label) heavy with expectation. It doesn’t disappoint.
Lead single ‘Lucky Girl’ gave us an inkling how Fazerdaze has evolved from its humble bedroom beginnings, with a fuller, richer sound than before. As on that track, guitars are the driving force on the record, and yet they often sit back in the mix, alongside synths, programmed drums and 100 olympic-sized pools’ worth of reverb. The result is a record that comes across as breezy and lo-fi, but expertly produced – another feather in Murray’s cap, who produced the record herself (and played everything on it bar a few drum parts).
This says nothing for the songs themselves – quintessential dream pop, with equal parts slacker and shoegaze affect. It’s clear Murray is a 90s kid.
Review by Cam Durnsford
Various Artists Follow The Sun (featured on The Breakfast Spread)
Several years down the path to realizing this record, Anthology offers Follow The SunMikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring) and Keith Abrahamsson (Founder / Head of A&R at Anthology Recordings and Mexican Summer), Follow The Sun filters the sublime and sometimes subversive psychedelic airwaves transmitted around the world from America’s terrestrial platforms during the golden age of gentle, exploratory FM through a distinctly Australian lens.
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