-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Winter
ALBUM...: Endless Space (Between You & I)
GENRE...: Indie
STYLE...: Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Indie Pop, Indie Rock
YEAR....: 2020
LABEL...: Bar/None
LANGUAGE: English, Brazilian /Tracks 7+9
COUNTRY.: USA
PLACE...: Los Angeles, CA
ENCODER.: FLAC 1.3.1 -8 -V
BITRATE.: 913 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / 2 channels
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 11
SIZE....: 255.85 MB
URL..: https://www.facebook.com/daydreamingwinter
https://intothepit.co.uk/feature-samira-winter-endless-space-between-you-i
- TRACKLIST
1 Between You and I 1:22
2 Endless Space (Between You and I) 3:37
3 Here I Am Existing 3:55
4 Healing 2:57
5 In The Z Plane 2:54
6 Say 3:08
7 Bem No Fundo (Ft. Dinho Almeida) 4:41
8 Constellation 4:04
9 Mem≤ria Colorida 4:05
10 Wherever You Are 3:58
11 Pure Magician 4:11
Total Playtime: 38:52
A masterclass in attention to detail, LA-via-Brazil musician Samira Winter
debuts her melodic album Endless Space (Between You & I), creating a hypnotic
trip of fairytale surrealism that sets her blend of dream pop and distorted
American punk leagues apart from her contemporaries.
Mixed with a fusion of sonic influences, the album introspectively spotlights
her esoteric world and experimentation with nature. The otherworldly title
track blends together time lapsed wildlife scenes, echoed distortion and
trilling arpeggio to produce a surreal aesthetic, whilst lead single Say
fuses delicate waves of soft synth psych pop with tight drum and bass loops.
Endless Space... sees Winter truly arrive. Fashioning a technicolour daydream
in aural form from start to finish.
*
It's nothing new for a band to straddle the line between the soft, enveloping
textures of dream pop and the noisier, pedal-abusing sounds of shoegaze,
plenty of artists and bands have given it a try. Some of them do a pretty
decent job blending the Cocteau Twins with My Bloody Valentine; some of them
can't quite get the balance right. Over the course of a few albums, Winter
showed that they were on the right track. Guided by the vision and voice of
Samira Winter, they took a light and bouncy approach that felt like the
brightest, happiest work of those two bands mashed together. On Endless Space
(Between You & I), Samira Winter ditched her previous crew of collaborators
and called in Ian Gibbs to help bring her vision to life. Gibbs plays a key
role in crafting the intricate and moodily pretty music made by the band
Vinyl Williams and it's perhaps no coincidence that Endless Space (Between
You & I) marks a definitive change in the band's sound. The guitars are
layered with tons of effects, Samira's voice soars and swoops more
confidently, the arrangements are fuller and more expansive, and the overall
mood is much less giddy. The songs echo and swirl in always pleasing,
sometimes radiant fashion, with layers of guitars, synths, and sound
surrounding Samira's gentle vocals sung in English and Portuguese. It's a
step up sonically from previous records and the writing stepped up to match.
The first three tracks on the album - discounting the brief introduction -
stand head and shoulders with the best modern efforts at dreamgaze. The title
track is a truly lovely midtempo ballad with a heart-rending vocal from
Samira and nice dynamics that range from painfully hushed to exploding in
brightly strummed colors; the calm and reassuring "Here I Am Existing"
bubbles and coos like birds chirping by the side of a stream on warm summer
day, and "Healing" definitely lives up to its title. The gentle melody,
whooshing synths, perfectly jangled guitars, and Samira's soothing vocals
work together perfectly to create a musical balm strong enough to soothe any
roiling emotions. If the record had stopped there, it would have already been
verging on classic. It keeps going, though, and delivers many delights along
the way. The shimmeringly icy post-disco of "Say" is a nice change of pace,
"Bem No Fundo" - a duet with Dinho Almeida of Boogarins - is richly
constructed modern pop, "Wherever You Are" adds some crunchy guitar firepower
to the proceedings, and the rest of the record feels happily introspective
and dreamlike. Samira Winter and her group were making fine records before
this, and now with the help of Gibbs she's making something emotionally
revealing, musically beautiful, and verging on brilliant overall.
*
Over the last couple of years the music world seems to have become saturated
with mediocre dream pop and shoe gaze artists. Just putting some delay on
your voice and chucking in a load of guitar effects really isn't enough.
Great dream pop needs strong melodies, well considered composition and
magical production. Enter Winter with her new album 'Endless Space (Between
You & I)'.
Samira Winter was half one of our favourite single releases of 2018, Winter &
Triptides Amiga. It's a superb piece of fuzzy 60s inspired Tropicalia, which
served as our introduction to Winter's soft breathy vocals. The album
'Estrella Magica' was also one of the first we reviewed.
Winter released two EPs, 'Infinite Summer' and 'Hazy' in 2019 and is back
with her second full length solo album. The title immediately resonates in
this COVID19 world. This is, of course, completely by chance having been
recorded before the outbreak. So what of the music?
Stylistically 'Endless Space' is consistently dreamy and ethereal.
Opener Between You & I is a trippy introduction, full of swirling
technicolour backwards sounds and vocals. A heady psychedelic track that,
when reversed (yes we did this), reveals itself to be a soupy outtake of the
following title track.
Endless Space (Between You and I) features simple vibrato-laden keyboard
hooks, a beautiful vocal melody, washing chords and phasing wind effects in
its careful composition. It comes across like My Bloody Valentine if they
were stripped of their heavy disorientating noise. It's mystical,
otherworldly.
This is contrasted by Here I Am Existing, which provides a little more
clarity through upbeat drums, chiming guitars and atmospheric synths. It
shares a lot in common with the much missed Broadcast in its melody and over
all atmosphere. Winter's vocals sit somewhere between Trish Keenan and
Kristφn Anna Valt²sd≤ttir of M·m. There is a simply stunning and quite
unexpected drop to half time around the 1 minute 25 mark.
The melodies throughout the album are exceptionally strong.
Tracks like Healing and Constellation are straight out of the Greta Kline
(Frankie Cosmos) melodic handbook. Of course, Winter's voice is very much her
own. Her pixie-like almost-whisper is enhanced by swirling atmospherics and
playfully manipulated delay on Healing. Constellation also indulges in that
warped down tuning effect that My Bloody Valentine fans will be familiar
with.
In The Z Plane mixes things up. It's largely lo-fi and acts as a well timed
breather. Initially, the only accompaniment at first to the guitar and vocal
is the sound of flowing water. This is until soft subtle electrics accentuate
the chorus on what is the most delicate composition on the album.
There are TripHop elements at points.
Say, will probably appeal to fans of Portishead and, more recently, Crumb,
with its grooving bass and effected drums.
Winter switches language to Portuguese for a duet with Boogarins' Dinho
Almeida on the excellent Bem No Fundo. The duet is really nicely pitched.
Their voices work seamlessly together. The instrumental tune, meanwhile, is
carried by a catchy keyboard melody and Grandaddy-esque arpeggios in the
chorus. It sounds like they had fun making it, even adding a simple, fuzzy
guitar solo.
Oddly, the sleepy Memoria Colorida also recalls Dinho Almeida's Boogarins
when it kicks in towards the end. The aquatic sounding, wet delay sounds and
beautifully recorded guitars take a grungy turn, with fuzzy guitars and
glorious feedback.
Wherever You Are follows. It's a plodding 4/4 ballad with waspy synths and
modulated guitar lines that recall Tortoise. It swirls and fizzes towards the
end but gets cut off quite abruptly before it really gets going. The melody
and warped atmospherics of closer Pure Magician shares a lot in common with
Atlas Sound's 'Shelia'. A suitably dreamy ending to a gorgeous album packed
with great melodies, intricate, glistening production and hypnotic
arrangements.
Dream pop as it should be.
*
It is most certainly uplifting, in these days and age, to be able to listen
to a record of an artist able to fuse, with such grace and elegance, genres
like Trip-Hop, Synth-Pop, New Age and Drum&Bass in an exciting and very
convincing melting pot of styles and sounds.
This is exactly what the Brazilian/American singer/songwriter Samira Winter
managed to achieve on her rather eclectic, yet hugely inspired debut album
called Endless Space (Between You And I), where this young and talented
artist showcases, together with her amazing voice and her very personal
musical vision, also a natural ability as a songwriter, combining the
freshness of her vocals with lyrics often inspired by esoteric themes and
also by the importance of trying to respect the world where we live in, on
many different levels.
Winter is truly a most welcomed breath of fresh air, in the contemporary
music scene. Endless Space (Between You And I) is a highly entertaining sonic
walk into the world of an artist able to surprise the listener on each track,
where you may find Winter either leading you into paths of emotional
melancholy, like in the beautiful lo-fi recorded and hypnotic tune called In
The Z Plane or in the song Constellation, where the singer/songwriter chisels
a sublime mash-up of Trip and Synth-Pop, delivering at the same time some of
the most intense vocals of the whole album.
The album in itself keeps on giving on many different levels. While the
Brazilian/American artist constantly delivers songs of great quality and
depth, thanks also to her breathtaking falsetto that brings often shivers to
the spine, throughout the whole record and either when she sings in English
or in Portuguese, it is also important to highlight the incredible amount of
work gone in the sonic construction of Endless Space, where walls of warped
samples, dreamy synths and 90's fuzzed guitars complement Samira Winter's
songs in the most enthralling and creative way.
Endless Space (Between You And I) is among the freshest and most innovative
musical baptism that a music artist can possibly dream of. Given the
astonishing outcome of Winter's debut album and the amount of talent
expressed through this wonderful record, there is no doubt that, in the
horizon of the music business, another star is shining bright and that star
is called Samira Winter.
*
About Samira Winter:
The power of a Winter song is hard to describe in words, like an exploration
of a sparkling blue dreamworld filled with refracting rainbow disco lights
spinning in an empty room. There's a make-believe, fairy tale surrealism that
sets Winter's blend of dream pop and psychedelia apart while existing in the
same universe as the ethereal dream pop of Cocteau Twins and Melody's Echo
Chamber.
Growing up in Curitiba, Brazil, her early life was steeped in the breezy
melodies of Brazilian MPB and the swirling guitars of early 90's indie rock.
At 18, she moved to the US to study at Boston's Emerson College, where she
first released music as Winter during her senior year in the midst of the
local noise-rock scene. Before moving to Los Angeles she immersed herself on
a Song-A-Day project which resulted in her debut album Supreme Blue Dream. In
Los Angeles she was embraced by the Burger and Lolipop Records community,
quickly building a cult following with a stream of bilingual releases
including her follow up album Ethereality and the nostalgic collaboration
with Triptides, Estrela Mßgica . Over the years Winter has toured multiple
times across the US with bands such as BRONCHO, Cherry Glazerr, Boogarins and
Vinyl Williams not to mention international dates in Mexico, Brasil,
Argentina and Europe with El Mat= a un Policfa Motorizado and Holy Wave.
On Endless Space (Between You & I), her forthcoming and debut LP for Bar/None
Records, Winter presents her most realized vision yet, drawing inspiration
from Broadcast, Melody's Echo Chamber, and Radiohead for a glorious, 3-D
journey into her world. Invigorated by a rediscovered bedroom demo, Winter
built a fantasy dreamscape with the help of multi-instrumentalist Ian Gibbs,
who engineered and co-produced the 11-tracks before passing them off to Pat
Jones (Toro y Moi, Washed Out) for fine tuning.
The resulting album is a masterclass in attention to detail - flickering
guitars sputter in reverse, panning from left to right in perfect synch,
while snippets of field recordings are delicately interspersed throughout. On
Endless Space, Samira Winter has truly arrived, a technicolor daydream in
aural form.
-=- SHGZ -=-
P.S.
** Thanks ***
*** BCC FNT IPC SSR ***
*** For Knowing Where The Music Is At ***
*** Props to CaHeSo, awesome Asian Indie/Shoegaze ***
*** And to FANG/HOUND for supporting all the Indie lovers out there ***
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* NuHS we miss you! *
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