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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.
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