research into Ethereal Goth and Dreampop (and other stuff for fans of early 4AD and Projekt)

Finished listening to the second Esben And The Witch album. It is much better than the first

Yes, definitely! Took me ages to get round to listening to it cos the first one was so boring but I have become unreasonably obsessed with the second since I heard it. Very post-4AD, kinda reminds me of early Lush, Piano Magic circa Low Birth Weight, even maybe early period Disco Inferno. Love 'When That Head Splits', but I love the opening song too and this one is also lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w61LU6AvvPo

I've been meaning to check out Disco Inferno forever.

the stuff compiled on In Debt is the most relevant to this thread, but it's the sampled-based music that came afterwards that they're acclaimed for

Also been listening to that complete Vyllies collection. Starts off very punky and then more elegant synth later on, several horror themed tracks, pleasantly sinister. Some of it more poppy.

Also the Rosewater Elizabeth album Le Petit Mort. The first dreampop album I've ever seen that warns you about the frequencies possibly damaging your sound system. Unusually for an obscure ethereal goth band, the production sounds really expensive and it has a nice depth to it.

not be all plug-y but some of you may like this band i play bass in
https://soundcloud.com/stealthistrack/shatter-mp3

pretty! dunno if it's just the power of suggestion just cos yr in the band tyler, but the chorus sounds a bit neil youngish, like only love can break your heart or something, that kind of lilting voice hanging over things

ha, well, i didn't have anything to do with the writing, but I'll take it as a compliment!

I've been meaning to check out Disco Inferno forever.

Rightly so.

but of course! it's an interesting blend of styles xp

I've been thinking of starting a thread listing all the bands I've wanted to hear for years (some as long ago as a decade) but I'm not sure if there is a point other than getting to shout at each other "drop everything and listen to them now!"

Probably isnt a good idea, I could probably list 200 bands that I've wanted to hear for years. Gordon Lightfoot is probably the one longest ago that I still havent got around to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79lLJsk8CqU

good one - who are these guys?

Yeah great track.

Pointers to some artists conspicuous in their absence above:

80s: Hetch Hetchy, Hugo Largo
90s: Anymore, Breath of Life, The Changelings, Collection d'Arnell-Andrea (I cheated, here), Elysium, Orange, Perfume Tree, Scala, Skinner Box
00s: Aisth, Au Revoir Borealis, Halou, Rhea's Obsession, School of Seven Bells (sadly), Sol Seppy, Violet Indiana
Current: A Sunny Day in Glasgow, 2:54, Exitmusic, Gazelle Twin, Zambri

xp: White Poppy is Crystal Dorval from Canada, she's got a bunch of stuff on bandcamp and the album that song's from is out on Not Not Fun (CD and LP). Apparently she's touring Europe in March. Lucky Euros.

Velour 100?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKSidApDmTc

Majesty Crush

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKZKBW752k4

Thanks to everyone (especially Sanpaku) for the contributions. Quite a few of them are already on my shopping lists but Hetchy Hetchy, Anymore, Breath Of Life, Skinner Box, Zambri and White Poppy are all new to me, thanks.

Does Hetchy Hetchy really have Michael Stipe's sister? Surely they would have been more famous for that alone?

=========================
Rosewater Elizabeth's Le Petit Mort is far more unusual than it appeared to me at first. It has lots of nice recurring moments and I love the way the songs seem to emerge out a deep space; some really gorgeous sparkly moments in there. It does have one or two typical goth moments but it's actually quite avant-garde. I know people might say this about a lot of ethereal music but you can really sink into this album and lose track of time.
Looking forward to the earlier album, hope I can get it on cd but it is on mp3.

The Vyllies collection was really good. The sinister horror tracks are easily the best thing on it. Some of it is actually quite spooky.
It is all remastered but I've never heard the originals (they are very rare it seems). I know next to nothing about the techie side of music so I'm not sure if I find the production lacking or if the instruments aren't good enough but I feel like the song material had the potential for more and deserved better sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jymp9Jdy8T4

I was watching the latest new Trance To The Sun live video and I saw a band called Solemn Meant Walks down the sidebar. Pretty good stuff.

http://solemnmeantwalks.bandcamp.com/

Finished listening to STARE - Haunted.
Pleasingly murky/swampy with those virtuous heroine vocals you hear in goth and metal bands often(this band surely calls themselves Goths), a few tracks I really liked but otherwise passable/okay. It has a cover of a Glove song.

Glad someone mentioned Sol Seppy up above. I have that album (well, mp3s) and it's really intriguing. Know nothing else about her/them, seem to have vanished completely.

http://trancetothesun.bandcamp.com/

There's a limited edition EP with 2 exclusive tracks, one being a live version of an old song. The album is supposed to be out very soon.

Need more of this stuff in my life, I'll probably get This Lush Garden Within by Black Tape For A Blue Girl.

Can anyone tell me about the Black Tape For A Blue Girl EPs? If they're proper releases or just previews for albums or skippable alternate versions of songs.

IIRC, they're a mix of album samples, live tracks, and outtakes/ephemera. Same issues as with all the BTFABG: melodically thin, interchangeable guest vocals, glacial pacing. Rosenthal will be better remembered for Projekt, especially for defining the genre in its mail-catalog and its reissue program.

I really love the 5 BTFABG albums I have, and after several years of going into these genres I appreciate them all the more. I think a few of the guest vocalists were very good, especially the amazing guy who sung "I Wish You Could Smile", I've always wanted to know if he sung on any other recorded music, I could easily imagine him being theatre singer.

Oddly enough when I remember Portishead's "The Rip" sometimes I mistake it for BTFABG for a few seconds.

I have the Heavenly Voices comp box set somewhere which is full of this stuff

These guys, Oake, are more on the dark and electronic side of things (somewhere between Succour-era Seefeel and the stuff from the Chasing Voices thread), but I figured someone else might dig this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=370XllR0yBQ

I tend to think of BTFABG as a band that came after all the famous goth bands died down a bit. But I always have to remind myself that they started in 1986 but it's hard for me to picture their three 80s albums coming out at the same time as everything else that happened at that time (not that I'm disputing it).
I just think of all that stuff (including earliest Lycia and This Ascension) is hard to place in that time. It always feels to me like it was all happening in a separate world (that they weren't popular in either). I guess that might be a part of the appeal. Same goes for a lot of goth, industrial and oddball bands.

It has been written that David Lynch was a fan of BTFABG. In the unlikely event I ever meet him, that's the first thing I'll ask. I should have went to that Q&A years ago.

Certainly the only reason I checked BTFABG out in the early 90s is that 4AD's focus shifted from annual releases from gothy stalwarts (CT/DCD) towards a Pixie/Throwing Muses/UVS and related bands focus in the 90s. After tracking down fellow travellers like Area, Bel Canto, Strange Boutique things thinned out quite a bit. Even C'est La Mort had slowed its release schedule down a bit in the early 90s.

There were a number of Euro bands in the Projekt mail catalogs that hit my buttons in ways BTFABG never did. I recall Hyperium and Hall Of Sermon being akin to 80s 4AD, though with quality control issues that 4AD managed to overcome during its classic period.

Album by album Trance To The Sun reviews in this thread! Elon was one of my flatmates sophomore year of college at UCSB. He was a good guy. Very serious. Not surprised at all he's still going strong, guy was obviously in it for life. Always had quality sounds coming out of his room. This Ascension was ok but Trance was definitely when things clicked.

What a cool story! Small world, really.

Had a chance to finally hang out with Sam R. in Portland back in April for dinner. Great guy! Dry as hell sense of humor.

That is cool Milton! Trance To The Sun really are one of the biggest bands for me.
I've been thinking a lot about the sort of fantasy worlds that bands create, it'll be different for every listener but I think a lot of bands deserve more credit for creating unique fascinating worlds. Trance To The Sun stands out in that regard.

Sanpaku- can you remember the European bands? I always want more of this stuff.

I've always admired BTFABG because there seems to be either a defiance/rebellion or (perhaps preferably) an obliviousness about how much their extreme sensibility would be hated and mocked by most music journalists, but it's difficult to imagine many bands not having that awareness.
I wonder how the band would have coped if they had wide enough exposure to have been written about in the main music papers? They probably would have got it 10 times worse than Slowdive.

To anyone who hasn't heard them, I'd describe them as having an old-fashioned theatricality, romantic poetry tropes (many would say cliches), full on seriously and lovingly depicted depression, baroque elegance and spacious sumptuous dark ambience.

You always have bands who try to even it out and say "it isn't all sad stuff that we do, we're funny guys, we like to have a laugh too" but then you get slowcore bands that that unashamedly go for the sad stuff and don't care what people think. I think Black Tape are kind of like that.
I mean, Black Tape, Slowdive, Red House Painters and Low have shown they have a sense of humour (whether in the music or otherwise), but I don't think anyone should have to prove it in their music. I've never understood why people get so offended by complete seriousness in a piece of work or why that should suggest the artists have a dangerous lack of humour.

There is happiness in their music too though, just like most "sad" bands.

Love that song they did about the drowning sailor, that was really atmospheric.

I have the same feeling as Robert, the Projekt stuff seemed to exist in a parallel universe to the other alt music stuff back then... I liked college and indie stuff and mined the music press for information about it (pre-Internet), but the Projekt catalog was a totally separate thing. I didn't really *want* to see that stuff reviewed, because it seemed to come from another place entirely.

Sam is posting some really interesting stuff to the Projekt mailing list lately about the label's history and how it operates, how the Internet has changed things for record labels. Glad he's willing to share on the subject.

RAG: To be honest, my fandom departed to more easily grazed pastures after the early 90s. Shoegaze/Trip-hop/IDM etc. There are a few artists unmentioned so far in this thread worthy of spelunking expeditions. Speaking Silence, Aude, Boudoir, for example. For the most part though, this genre has unencouraging hit/miss ratio for me: too many operatic dropouts, too few clever sound engineers.

Thanks. I haven't heard of Boudoir or Aude. Speaking Silence is familiar.

Very pleased I managed to get a CD of Lycia's Quiet Moments (can't believe this came out 2013, it doesn't seem that long ago). It starts off much like 90s Lycia then becomes very different in most of the later tracks. Surprised this is basically a VanPortfleet solo album; Vanflower has backing vocals in one track then fully sings the final track.
So glad they finally used "The Soil Is Dead" because it was easily the standout of all the new tracks they shown on MySpace years ago.

There's a book on this type of music by David D'Halleine called La Croche Lune. In French only, so I can't read it.

Hmmm. Looking through the Amazon preview it's more like a book of lists. Looks easy enough to follow but I'm not sure this would offer much more than online databases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sda-3rIPrYs

I've really been digging Isabel's Dream lately — Canadian dreampop with drum & bass beats, kinda reminiscent of Seefeel. they only released one EP (2000's Monomara) and one mp3.com release (Blue, which contributes 2 additional tracks), and nobody seems to know what became of them.

^^^ Nice song. Always weird when a band just disappears.

Chasms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5PQNnRiSyQ

Finished listening to Black Tape For A Blue Girl - This Lush Garden Within. It's far more brooding, solemn, and at times oppressively humid than the previous albums. I don't remember the orientalist fantasy in the previous albums either. I bloody love Oscar Herrera.

http://chasmssf.bandcamp.com/

Chasms stuff is quite nice.

What about Ataraxia, Die Verbannten Kinder Evas, Dark Sanctuary, Elend, Ashram, Puissance, Autopsia, even some Wappenbund - darkwave for sure but perhaps not "ethereal" enough?

Thankyou, I'll have to look a lot of them up.

I have an Ataraxia album (Paris Spleen), it's pretty good, I believe they started more ethereal then later on shifted in various different directions, definitely some Dead Can Dance in them.

I've heard a bit of Elend, I think it was neoclassical stuff with kind of a folky flavour.

Can't recall what Dark Sanctuary sounds like.

A lot of it falls into neoclassical darkwave which I guess is where most of the Projekt/4AD fanbase ended up after the 90s. On the Cocteau Twins - Dead Can Dance axis all that stuff is firmly on the DCD side of things, not much "pop" in there.

Sixth Comm - Content With Blood (1987) also recommended btw, definitely falls into the "ethereal goth" category.

Relatively recent stuff like Chelsea Wolfe, Grimes, Eskimeaux, Breathless (old band but got much more 'ethereal'), Autumn's Grey Solace, The Eden House, Esben & The Witch, Sylvaine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVRIBvrnzYE
I thought I had posted this before but finally listened to this, very interesting dive into the Burning Circle era, Mike's regrets about some of the remasters, why he made a one disc version of Burning Circle and why that was a bad idea

Yeah I was going to say, The Burning Circle has to be the full two hour thing. I'm glad he realized that!

I'm kind of amazed it was all supposed to be for separate albums, it sounds like a beautifully planned single experience to me

love this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLar4WIePmg

This blew my mind when they played it as opening act of Neubauten’s Tabula Rasa tour in LA. Nothing else reached that high but man they were good back then

Quite enjoying this Deary album.

https://deary.bandcamp.com/
which one?

Occurred to me, thanks to this revive, that I don't think either of the Frank Deserto-curated sets on Cherry Red he put together have been linked here. Kinda great resource helping to make sense of the roots of this demigenre as such:

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/no-songs-tomorrow-darkwave-ethereal-rock-and-coldwave-1981-1990-4cd-box-set

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/various-artists-cherry-stars-collide-dream-pop-shoegaze-ethereal-rock-1986-1995-4cd-box-set

Or at least he did the liners for one or both sets, if not being the sole person to assemble the sets. Outgrowths of the separate Silhouettes and Statues and Still in a Dream sets on early goth and shoegaze respectively, but with a smart broad sense of how there was a lot of general bleedover and expansion across all these years that pointed to where it would go in the future.

I should get all these but I'm kind of nervous about getting compilations with bands I've already wishlisted. It's one of the nice things about small bands is hearing an album totally fresh with no prior experience. I guess I could just keep these compilations long term and listen to them after I've heard all the burning priorities.