-=- SHGZ -=- * Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal * ARTIST..: Jaguwar ALBUM...: Ringthing GENRE...: Indie STYLE...: Shoegaze, Noise Pop, Dream Pop, Indie Rock YEAR....: 2018 LABEL...: Tapete COUNTRY.: Germany PLACE...: Berlin FORMED..: 2012, Dresden, Sachsen, Germany VOCALS..: English ENCODER.: LAME 3.100 -V0 BITRATE.: 271 kbps avg QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo SOURCE..: CD TRACKS..: 10 SIZE....: 97.89 MB URL..: https://www.facebook.com/jaguwarmusic https://jaguwar.bandcamp.com/album/ringthing https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/jaguwar/ringthing-1 https://jaguwar.blogspot.com https://soundcloud.com/jaguwarmusic https://jaguwarband.tumblr.com - TRACKLIST 1 Lunatic 4:32 2 Skeleton Feet 5:07 3 Slow And Tiny 6:09 4 Gone 5:42 5 Crystal 5:16 6 Night Out 5:14 7 Whales 5:08 8 Away 6:06 9 Week 4:40 10 End 2:07 Total Playtime: 50:01 NOTICE: Track #1 on the backcover is misspelt. "Lunatics" shouild be "Lunatic". Any website or review showing the tracklist spells it as "Lunatic" Even the official youtube video of the song uses the title "Lunatic". Label: https://shop.tapeterecords.com/jaguwar-ringthing-1375 * Jaguwar began life as a trio, formed in Dresden by Oy mi and Lemmy in 2012. Their drummer Chris signed up in 2014 to complete the current line-up. Thus far they have released two EPs on the US label Prospect Records and have played countless shows in the UK, Denmark, France, Serbia, Germany and beyond. They have shared the stage with acts like We were promised Jetpacks, Japandroids and The Megaphonic Thrift, resulting in many happy faces and ringing ears. In 2016 they sent a brief e-mail to Tapete Records with music attached, asking to support The Telescopes on tour. Any band keen on supporting The Telescopes is sure to spark our curiosity and, before long, the two Jaguwar EPs had become firm favourites on the Tapete office playlist. File under: wall of sound, shoegaze, noise & pop. It is by no means injurious to surmise that My Bloody Valentine have had (and continue to have) some small, yet significant, degree of influence on Jaguwar. In 2017, armed with an impressive array of effect devices, guitars, bass and amps, backed up by a prodigious supply of coffee and cigarettes, they decamped to the Tritone Studio in the idyllic environs of Hof, Bavaria, to record what would become "Ringthing". Typically for the genre, they crafted layer upon sonic layer. No less typically, deadlines were not always adhered to. But it has been well worth the wait: more noise than ever and even more pop. "Noise & detail" is how the band describe their sound. "Ringthing" is a shimmering, reverberating, crashing monolith of an album. Jaguwar sway from combining saccharine pop with Amphetamine Reptilian noise to sounding like a serendipitous encounter between The Cure and Ride. Prepare to expect the unexpected from their meandering song structures. Successfully unshackled from their paragons, the trio's sui generis sound is destined to be heard all over the world. At thunderous volume! * When the news of noise rock legends The Telescopes being on tour reached Jaguwar's headquarters in Dresden (Germany), the band shot an e-mail to Tapete Records with some sample audio requesting a slot in the bill. The simple but effective plan paid off and not only got them to open for the English act but also granted them a record deal that would materialize as this... Ringthing. Not only that, the fruitful relationship between master and apprentice also continued with Jaguawar's covering The Telescopes' "Flying" on their Soundcloud page and the UK legends returning the favor by remixing "Crystal", the first single extracted from Jaguwar's debut, drowning the noise pop track into a sea of reverb and static lush. Pinpointing the exact position that Jaguwar's music occupies in a shoegaze scale is a complex albeit pointless task. Where the sybarites of the genre would fret, the sporadic listeners would actually delight themselves with the different colors and shapes that dwell in this intrepid debut. The trio fronted by Lemmy Fischer on guitar and Oy mi Noize on bass duties have adventured in crafting an album that befriends at first and successfully marries later all of their influences into a single menu, with My Bloody Valentine being the main dish, and The Cure and Ride being the dessert. Christoph Krenkel's drumming works as the counterpoint for Jaguwar's alternative rock infused shoegaze, providing a rather furious and effervescent tempo that invites the songs to stream with undemanding attention, in contrast with the customary glue-footed motion of bands like Slowdive. Vocal duties are also shared between Fischer and Noize, where the former pulls the band towards the post punk zone with anguished but broken temper, Noize takes it back to gaze county with honey tones reminiscent of a playful Siouxsie or an angry Mazzy Star swallowed by a swarm of guitars and distorted bass lines. Ringthing shows that the team have made their homework in researching their sound amidst a myriad of pedal effects and production tricks, after all, the album shares its title with one of the apparatus created by sound-smiths Electro-Harmonix. From the very first chords of "Lunatic" to the atomic ending of third track and highlight "Slow and Tiny", there is no doubt the band has put an almost maniac attention to detail, bringing together an alloy of sound walls and skeletal parts alike which gives the album space to breathe in between every sonic assault. "Gone" marks the first of several moments of serenity, with Noize's vocals taking the spotlight while Fischer's guitar lurks in the background impatient to break through. "Crystal" kindles the fire again displaying a pretty accurate Robert Smith impression courtesy of Fischer, followed by dream pop beauty "Night Out" and the weighty "Whales", where the sharp and thunderous guitars pay another visit to finish the track on a heavy note. "Away" is all about Noize and Fischer singing a bitter melody against a hammering bass and sparkling guitars, unshackling all the distortion they have during the final minutes of the song along with Krenkel's fuming beating. The album closes with combo tracks "Week" and "End" slowly releasing the pressure until finally vanishing in a dying arpeggio. With Ringthing, Jaguwar distills their heavy shoegaze formula after two EPs that sat way too comfortable behind the shadow of their influences and experiment with pushing the genre to further yet uncertain latitudes, a proposal that tries to convey a mighty legacy with new branches that may very well be also the seed for future expressions of the genre. * Jaguwar began life as a trio, formed in Berlin, Germany by Oy mi and Lemmy in 2012. Their drummer Chris signed up in 2014 to complete the current line-up; to date, they have released two EPs and have taken their wall of sound (heavily "shoegaze" influence - think My Bloody Valentine, Lush and Curve influenced noise pop) on to countless shows in the U.K., Denmark, France, Serbia, Germany and beyond. This first full-length album, Ringthing is a shimmering, energetic reverberating, crashing monolith of an album. Jaguwar sway from combining sweet pop figures with white-hot amphetamine noise to sounding like a serendipitous encounter between Husker Du and Ride. "Noise & detail" is how the band describes their soun, which would not be wholly inaccurate. Starting with the frenetic "Lunatics", it's an enjoyable sensory assault; you want, need and like gripping onto the bar of this musical roller coaster as it takes you up and down with no restraint; "Skeleton Feet" is another pulsing track that opens with an exquisite sound of guitar scrapes that can be likened to a melodic pane of glass breaking and falling in tune; "Slow And Tiny" uses a cacophonous soundscape in the background of an otherwise breakneck tempo that reminds one of running through a nightmare - haunting yet completely enticing. "Crystal", has that certain '80's swirling feel - a cross between The Cure and Siouxsie & The Banshees - one of those great, cinematic musical ice sculptures that shimmers; "Away" is straight out of the Chameleons/early U2/Comsat Angels/Sound school of structure and production - echogated guitar, space and heavily propulsive rhythm section and the aptly-titled "End" is a soundscape instrumental that oddly enough sounds a great deal like Husker Du's "The Tooth Fairy & The Princess" - a slab of modern psychedelic to end this spectacular album in a very satisfying fashion. What can I say more than you really need to seek this album out and listen to it, from beginning to end. A dynamic debut album that gives me more hope than I'd previously had - that young bands are taking their cues from one of the richest musical periods and putting their own stamp on it. Well done... well done, indeed. * Form en 2012, le trio Jaguwar avait d j- livr deux EPs distribu s par Prospect Records. Mais six ans apr s sa cr ation vient enfin le moment de coucher ses odyss es vaporeuses sur long-format. Et force est de constater que celles-ci s'av rent aussi brillantes que stimulantes sur un Ringthing relay par l'excellent label allemand Tapete Records. Ceux qui ont ouvert la sc ne pour Japandroids convoquent un onirisme a rien entretenu par des murs de son que ne renieraient pas My Bloody Valentine, assurance ouvertement assum e par les Allemands, au point qu'ils avouent avoir "perdu tout leur argent en achetant des amplis, p dales d'effets, guitares et vinyles" du groupe men par Kevin Shields. La sc ne shoegaze du d but des ann es 90 constitue d'ailleurs une influence majeure, l'imm diatet et l'aspect r che des guitares du Lunatic initial voquant d'ailleurs des cousins de Ride. Il serait n anmoins trop simple de r duire Jaguwar - un ni me ersatz de cette nouvelle vague noise-pop qui d ferle dans les milieux ind pendants depuis plus d'un an. Certes, les musiciens jouent avec leurs p dales d'effets pour dessiner des horizons gazeux, mais il r gne une atmosph re froide sur leurs compositions, de celles qui ressuscitent le spectre de The Sound, que ce soit sur Week ou plus encore sur un Crystal qui fait figure de sommet du disque. Le chant a rien de Oy mi Noize d gage une empathie qui, n'en d plaise - ceux qui sont allergiques - la sensualit , ajoute - l'ensemble un suppl ment d' me. Le principal d faut de Ringthing r side probablement dans le fait qu'il sort un quart de si cle trop tard. La production n'est pas particuli rement aventureuse, pr f rant s'ancrer dans des ann es 90 qui ont marqu le combo form - Dresde sans qu'il se contente de convoquer uniquement l'ambiance de l' poque, fa on madeleine de Proust, puisque contrairement - de nombreux suiveurs du genre, Jaguwar n'oublie pas de composer des encha nements aux progressions stimulantes. * Dresden-based Jaguwar's debut album, described by the band as 'noise and detail', is destined to become a shoegaze favourite It has taken five and a half years for German shoegaze darlings Jaguwar to get around to crafting their impressive debut album. The trio was formed in Berlin during the summer of 2012 by Oy mi Hessou (vocals and bass) and Lemmy Fischer (vocals and guitars), adding drummer Christoph Krenkel in 2014. After, as their Bandcamp page claims, "losing all their money in buying tons of amps, effects, guitars and my bloody valentine vinyls" they released two EPs, 'I EP' and 'II EP', on Prospect Records and played extensively in Europe and the UK whenever possible. In 2016 the band approached Tapete Records via e-mail, asking to be hired as the support act on the Telescopes' upcoming tour. Once the staff at Tapete were well and truly smitten by Jaguwar's music, they sent them off to Tritone Studio in Hof, Bavaria last year - "armed with an impressive array of effect devices, guitars, bass and amps, backed up by a prodigious supply of coffee and cigarettes" - to record their debut album, Ringthing. The record is a ride through 80s' synthpop at its very best, shimmery New Romantic era, onward toward the Cure's 'The Head on the Door' period ('Crystal', 'Gone', 'Week'), with wall of sound, classic dream pop ('Night Out'), and shoegaze thrown in, dominated by Ride ("Slow and Tiny") and noisy My Bloody Valentine ("Whale"). Fittingly, they covered Ride's 'Today' on the tribute album 'Leave Them All Behind: A Tribute to Ride' in 2016. It's also not surprising that the band mentions MBV by name in their Bandcamp blurb; it wouldn't be a shock to learn that they all have tattoos paying homage to MBV. There are many reminders of Robert Smith's vocal style and the Cure in general, but there's also hints of Modern English, the Three O'Clock, A Flock of Seagulls, and the Teardrop Explodes. Everything on 'Ringthing' is crafted as precisely and as carefully as a high-end German car nobody can afford: they describe their sound as "noise and detail," which can't be argued in the slightest, and were so perfectionistic that, as they continued to add details and layers, they threw their label's deadlines out the window. They wanted a "soundshape which is blended by walls of guitars but even sparkled with sweet purple stars," and with these ten songs this lofty goal has been successfully achieved many times over. -=- SHGZ -=- -=-=-==-=-=- Shoegaze is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the late 80s. The genre is very difficult to define, and it is even more difficult to evaluate music within it. Generally, the genre is characterized by its shimmering vocals, reverberating guitars, and textural distortion that create a tranquil, opaque feeling. ---==--==---