Menu | Rating System | Guest Book | Archived Reviews:
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

         
       
         
 
Recording:
  Tender Futures  
 
Artist:
  Female Gaze
 
 
Label:
  Fort Lowell Records
 
 
Release Date:
  17.May.2024  
 
Reviewed by:
  PostLibyan  
         
 
Rating:
   
         
 
Review:
 

As someone who writes music reviews, I have a kind of deep knowledge of a lot of underground music. I have a passing (or sometimes deeper) familiarity with a large number of obscure (and sometimes not so obscure) bands.

So I got a press release that compared Female Gaze to The Aislers Set. I marveled at the futility of comparing a band you are trying to promote to an obscure late 1990s dreampop act that very few people have ever heard of. So of course I had to download and listen to this promo.

And, after listening, I can kind of hear it. There is a sparseness to the music here, as well as a bit of the old lo-fi aesthetic. So if you liked the sparse lo-fi twee of The Aisler's Set, well, there is a connection here.

So: Female Gaze is a power trio from Tucson AZ.

On their BandCamp page guitarist and vocalist Nelene DeGuzman talks about having a chronic health issue, and having to wait for surgery, and how interminable that is. I get that. I had to wait for surgery last year, just pushing past the pain and trying to live what limited life I could live. There is a hopelessness to that kind of feeling, and that is partly what DeGuzman is singing about here.

The record starts off with a guitar picking a simple riff and a voice echoing in a big room. The song is called Ghosts and it is not eerie so much as mournful. The echo on the simple instrumentation makes it seem lonely.

But then drums come rolling in and we are in Broadcast. A bass riff joins in, and the level of echo on the voice goes all the way. Is DeGuzman singing in an empty swimming pool? The voice is fuzzy, hazy, distant, and gives the song a feeling of unrealness. The song meanders for four minutes, a nice light pop song at a lethargic pace with echoes coming from everywhere, and then the drums pick up, the bass rumbles, and the guitar whirrs noisily. The song becomes a fever dream, frantic, disturbing, the dream (pop) turned bad (psychedelic). This part of the song reminds me, slightly, or The Doors, at least in the rhythm and the feel of that band.

The fever at the end of Broadcast runs out and fades to a night scene -- crickets, the rumble of traffic, a horn (trumpet?) in the distance. And then it all fades into Tender Futures. This is a vaguely jazzy number, the bass rumbling like an upright, the drums tapped, and the guitar twangy and western. Here, Female Gaze hint at Knife in The Water and Myssouri, but the bass is the star here, the way it keeps the whole song anchored while rolling along.

On In the Mezzanine Female Gaze call back to Ghosts, only here the voice is pared with sparse piano. And finally everything is wrapped up with Severance, a catchy tune with a rolling lope of a beat, shaky egg, the guitar playing a fun riff, and DeGuzman's voice steeped in echo, blurry over the clearer backing music.

One thing to note is that the transitions between the songs are really well done. The way that Broadcast reaches its end, and then slowly there is a night scene, and then a horn in the distance, and then the jazzishness of Tender Futures all flows seamlesslyt. It is like listening to a little film. Very well done.

And overall this is a fun album. It is blurry at times and driving at others, but it is covered in a warm haze of psychedelia, like wandering in the desert after a few beers... Or at least, it feels like what i would think that is like. I live in a SouthEastern rain forest and have only ever been in a desert for a few vacation days, so what do i know...

But this is a worthwhile record either way.

 
         
 
Related Links:
 

https://www.femalegazeband.com/
https://femalegaze.bandcamp.com/album/tender-futures
https://fortlowell.bandcamp.com/album/tender-futures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aislers_Set

 
         

Return to the top of this page. | Return to the Album Review menu.