http://www.myspace.com/heartso fblackscience Recommended if you like: Maps, Amusement Parks on Fire, Engineers, Televise, The December Sound, Fleeting Joys, Curve, The Radio Dept., The Mary Onettes From Gothenburg, Sweden comes alternative electro-rock act Hearts of Black Science with their melancholic and sometimes dark pop with haunting melodies. In the winter of November 2005, the two childhood friends Daniel Änghede and Tomas Almgren met up after Tomas had spent the last seven years in London and Berlin, working on a career as a horror movie director and Daniel's band had just split up so they decided [...]
![Be Prepared: Fleeting Joys | Despondent Transponder [Reissue] | 11 March](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/2372370_lg.jpg)
California-based shoegaze titans Fleeting Joys announced last week that the duo's stunning, twice-out-of-print full-length debut Despondent Transponder will be reissued with bonus tracks March 11 in Japan on the Thomason Sounds label. The reissue is augmented with two electrifying bonus tracks, "Cross Out My Heart" and "Morphine Drip." Both songs are streaming at Fleeting Joys ' MySpace wigwam, and much to our delight the band has consented to our offering "Morphine Drip" as a download, so if you dig the stream come on back and grab the tune. To celebrate the [...]

Nadja is a 1994 film by Micheal Almereyda. It was shot mostly in the NYC's East Village. While it's a bit pretentious it's got some really great perfomances from two Hal Hartley regulars, Martin Donovan and Elina Lowensohn, and a wacky Peter Fonda as Van Helsing. The soundtrack is dope too, boasting tunes from My Bloody Valentine, The Verve and Portishead. The score was performed by Simon Fisher Turner and is up there as one of my favorite records. I believe the album is still in print and is well worth seeking out. You can hear one [...]

So that was 2009, huh? Besides all the day-job stuff, we'd be happy for another year just like it, musically and personally. We loathe when people say "this year wasn't very good for music" or crap like that, because, frankly, if you're saying that you weren't trying hard enough. There's always more music, and there is always great music. But enough of that rant. We're pleased with the array of artists we spotlight below; we hope you'll find some things here that had escaped your attention heretofore, and that you derive as much enjoyment from listening to them as we [...]

Here it is, our annual salute to the greatest of the (contemporary) greatest: our most-listened-to tracks of 2009. The usual rules apply: each band only gets one song, so despite the fact that most of our Top 10 most-listened-to 2009 tracks in ITunes are from Johnny Foreigner 's superlative Grace And The Bigger Picture , only the most-played track gets a slot on our list below. The main reason for doing this list is to spotlight great songs that might not have been on an album that warrants best-of-the-best status for the year. The inclusion of George [...]
![Review: Fleeting Joys | Occult Radiance [MP3]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/1972343_lg.jpg)
We've been talking about it for more than a year, but the sophomore record from Fleeting Joys is finally here. The elephant in the room when discussing the superlative Northern California-based shoegaze duo is the similarity between its music and the most well-known and inflential portion of My Bloody Valentine 's body of work. It bears mentioning and is a useful shorthand, but we expect Fleeting Joys ' John Loring and Rorika grow weary of the obvious comparison (they list MBV first among their influences at MySpace ) even as they are gratified [...]

Behold the art for the breath-taking and triumphant sophomore full-length from Northern California-based shoegaze goliaths Fleeting Joys . Gorgeous melodies, crushing waves of electric guitar, and some very nice ambient moments as well. The U.S. release has two songs and a different mix than the previously released Japanese version issued by Thomason Sounds . Pre-order the set here . The band is offering the outtake "Golden Now" for free download, so have at it. We've been listening to Occult Radiance for days and highly recommend it. Fleeting Joys -- "Golden Now" [...]

http://www.myspace.com/fleetin gjoys http://fleetingjoys.blogspot.c om The Fleeting Joys, from Daffodil Hill, California (where the hell is that?), released one of my favorite albums from 2006, "Despondent Transponder". They are releasing a new album, Occult Radiance, next month on Sept. 1st. Fleeting Joys - Occult Radiance preview/medley Fleeting Joys - "Patron Saint" Recommended if you like: My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground, Nico, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Serena Maneesh, Bright Black Morning Light, 13th Floor [...]
OCTOPUS PROJECT TO LAUNCH NATIONWIDE TOUR Our favorite local instrumental-noodlers the Octopus Project are set to launch their nationwide tour starting with Lollapalooza in just a few days. We're of course stoked to see one of our favorite local acts cause such a stir outside of Austin, so in support here's there video for "Truck" which is garnering some attention over at YouTube. Go Octopus Project and see you when you get back in time for the ACL Festival ! ****************************** ****************************** ******** FLEETING JOYS [...]

>> Something we did not know until about 9:40 Tuesday night: shoegaze geniuses Fleeting Joys are about to release a new record. It may or may not be titled Occult Radiance , and it is set for release on Fleeting Joy 's own Only Forever label Aug. 11. Best of all, the Northern California duo has posted a megamix of sorts of samples from all the tracks on the album as an MP3 at its blog. We'll save you the trip over there by reposting the thing below. For those unfamiliar with the band, [...]

Shoegaze will always remain one of my favorite genres of music, even if I get away from it from time to time, it's something that I always come back to. Granted, shoegaze and dreampop saw their heyday in the early nineties, but today many acts continue to reinvent and push the envelope with the genre. I was reading an interview with Soundpool (one of the bands featured in this post) about the relation among shoegaze, electronica, and indie-pop becoming more familiar in Japan. One of the group's members stated that there has been "a significant change in [...]