EXPLORING THE BLACK ROOTS OF SHOEGAZE AND DREAM POP
M.I.C uncovers the Black origins of shoegaze and dream pop and meets the Black musicians taking the sounds forward
- M.I.C
- 24 MAY 2021
For the uninitiated though, what the hell even is shoegaze music? Is the term interchangeable with dream pop? I’ve been an avid fan of many of the artists associated with the genre for years now and I still have trouble explaining the genre tropes in a succinct fashion. A genre staple of shoegaze/dream pop is the guitar sound: prioritising ethereality over everything, via bountiful usage of pedals and effects processors, with obscured vocals rarely exceeding the volume of the aforementioned guitar in the mix. A.R. Kane, a band of two Black Londoners who were big fans of pioneering Scottish group Cocteau Twins, exemplify this on their debut album, 1988’s ‘69’. This album’s sound was prophetic, predating the release of My Bloody Valentine’s so called genre-defining album ‘Loveless’ by just over three years. It would be remiss not to mention that A.R. Kane were also the ones to coin the term “dream pop” in the first place, with founding member Alex Ayuli first using it to describe their band’s sound.
So what is the point of me mentioning all of this? Why are you reading this piece written by me, a musician with a come up apparently worlds away from shoegaze? In the internet age, detailed chronologies of virtually every musical style and sound are accessible within a matter of clicks or taps. You can become a veritable historian of anything from speed garage to grindcore in less than 24 hours of ardent cyber trawling. Without a doubt in my mind, there is going to be a journalist out there that can word almost everything I have written so far a lot better than me, maybe because of a more advanced level of literacy or due to possessing music industry knowledge I have not been privy to. Here’s the thing though; I spent a long time searching online for an article, or a documentary, or something, anything, about Black people in shoegaze and dream pop music. Hours scouring the web and I found next to nothing. It didn’t help that every search of “Black shoegaze” brought up bands such as Alcest and Deafheaven; an assortment of bands that took black metal’s ferocity and paired it with the dreamy atmosphere of the bands that gazed so listlessly at their guitar pedals. Great music, but not necessarily made by black people specifically. This couldn’t just be it…
Luckily, it wasn’t. Picture me circa June 2020. Lockdown was getting to me, curiosity took the reins and I was blessed by the advent of the Black Artist Database, a tool that allowed me the means to locate black musicians from across the globe making every conceivable sound and style. All of a sudden, I was able to listen to shoegazers the world over that were like me and it was invigorating. Being armed with the realisation that Black shoegaze really was a thing, I felt emboldened, so it only made sense for me to connect with some of these other Black shoegazers and “dream-poppers” and see what they had to say about this music
