-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Zoon
ALBUM...: Bleached Wavves
GENRE...: Indie
STYLE...: Moccasingaze, Shoegaze, Native American, Alternative, Experimental
YEAR....: 2020
LABEL...: Paper Bag
COUNTRY.: Canada
PLACE...: Hamilton, Ontario
ENCODER.: FLAC 1.3.1 -8 -V
BITRATE.: 950 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / 2 channels
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 10
SIZE....: 201.78 MB
URL..: http://zoongideewinmusic.bandcamp.com/music
- TRACKLIST
1 Clouded Formation 1:06
2 Vibrant Colours 4:36
3 Was & Always Will Be 3:11
4 Bleached Wavves 3:27
5 BrokenHead 2:48
6 A Perfect Sunset Ahead 0:54
7 Light Prism 3:55
8 Infinite Horizons (feat. Jesse Davidson) 2:06
9 Landscapes 2:58
10 Help Me Understand 4:29
Total Playtime: 29:30
The name Zoon derives from the Ojibway word Zoongide'ewin which means
"bravery, courage, the Bear Spirit" and aptly describes the inspirations for
the project and the lovingly crafted first full-length recording from
Canadian indigenous songwriter Daniel Monkman. Musically rooted in guitar
driven ambient alt rock territory, Bleached Wavves is the first true document
of what has been dubbed "moccasin-gaze," a tongue-in-cheek nickname for the
amalgamation of his shoegaze influences with traditional First Nations music.
Like My Bloody Valentine's 'Loveless', a record that changed everything for
him, Zoon pushes forward that famously quixotic, effects-laden sound with a
distinctive, new approach.
*
Canadian musician Daniel Monkman fell in love with shoegaze as a teenager,
and the music has always helped him cope with his life struggles, from facing
adversity due to his indigenous heritage to poverty and drug addiction. After
near-death experiences and a close friend's death due to an overdose, Monkman
sought spiritual guidance and cleaned up. In order to get his life and music
career back on track, he moved to Hamilton, Ontario, and started a band
called Bloom, which he renamed Zoon after the Ojibway word Zoongide'ewin,
meaning "bravery, courage, the Bear Spirit." The project's debut album is
curiously titled Bleached Wavves, as it doesn't really have much to do with
the beachy indie punk of either Bleached or Wavves. His masses of elaborately
sculpted guitar noise inevitably bring to mind My Bloody Valentine, yet the
shuffling rhythms of songs like "Vibrant Colours" are a bit closer to the
Madchester scene, but without the drug-fueled hedonism. His spiritual quest
is reflected by tracks like "Was & Always Will Be," which is less a song than
a mantra, with Monkman chanting over a focused haze of buzzing, nestled
guitar feedback and entranced percussion. "BrokenHead" is named after the
Ojibway Nation in Winnipeg, where Monkman was raised, and the swaying
instrumental conveys a sense of being at peace in one's home environment,
even if that wasn't always the case throughout his upbringing. The album's
most gripping moment is "Infinite Horizons," wherein Monkman delivers a
spoken monologue reflecting on his ancestry and his quest to understand his
history, over sporadic drums and gliding guitars. "Landscapes" is the
record's most ecstatic cut, expressing its glee through a squall of guitars
and hard rhythmic panning rather than words. The album concludes with the
majestic procession of "Help Me Understand," the clearest indication of his
search for enlightenment. Monkman covers a wide range of styles and moods in
just half an hour, but it all ties into his message of healing and
empowerment, along with a hint of nostalgic longing. He clearly has an
abundance of ideas, and it'll be fascinating to see where he goes from here.
*
DKFM -
Recently I was scrolling through Facebook when I came across a post with a
link to a mysterious looking artist called Zoon. The album was called
Bleached Wavves and it floored me. Instantly.
The name Zoon derives from the Ojibway word Zoongide'ewin which means
"bravery, courage, the Bear Spirit" and aptly describes the inspirations for
the project and the lovingly crafted first full-length recording from
aboriginal songwriter, Daniel Monkman. In Bleached Wavves Daniel has crafted
a work of stunning originality, blending the dreamy and psychedelic sounds of
shoegaze with the more traditional sounds of his heritage.
The album opens with the minute-long sound experiment, "Clouded Formation",
setting the mood for first song proper, "Vibrant Colours". Here Daniel makes
full use of the glide guitar technique on top of a strident drum beat. The
chorus is gloriously uplifting and counters the almost goth vibe of the
verses.
"Was & Always Will Be" in complete contrast opens with a technicolour swirl
of tribal drums, sitar-like sounds, finger chimes and a chanting invocation.
This track is utterly compelling like Kaa in The Jungle Book, its hypnotic
charm hooks you right in. The inventiveness on show here I haven't seen since
the early days of Beck. As if reading my mind, Daniel kicks it up another
notch.
With the sounds of the ocean behind a guitar in tremolo ecstasy, we reach the
title track. I love how Daniel's vocals come in off the beat here. It really
adds the element of surprise to the intro. For such an understated track it
carries such a powerful emotional punch. No sooner have we begun though than
the sounds of the ocean carry us away.
The opener on Zoon's debut album, Bleached Wavves, sounds like a familiar
shoegaze prologue. Titled "Cloud Formations," it sounds like something My
Bloody Valentine or Lilys might have come up with, with hypnotically
swirling, textured guitars that meet and diverge in blissful dissonance.
While Bleached Wavves continues the path set out in its intro - featuring
textured guitars that glide and crash in a collage of reverb and delay
effects - it also blazes new trails in shoegaze, particularly in the way it
implements sounds from traditional First Nations music, an inventive mixture
Daniel Monkman cheekily calls "moccasin-gaze."
The most ambitious example of this mixture comes on "Was & Always Will Be,"
which features a layered, gauzy hum, jingly percussion, resonant drums, and
voices singing in refrain - a breathtaking kaleidoscope of sound that uses
shoegaze's blueprint for something totally new.
Because Monkman's influences are wide, the sounds on Bleached Wavves are
varied, but never beyond cohesion. On the title track, guitars whirr and
pulse, recalling MBV, and on "Light Prism," they plink and wail, like
something off a Slowdive record. The influence is clear, but it's not
distracting: both tracks feel like astute observations of the genre, honing
in on its elements to subtly evoke nostalgia, longing and hope.
Bleached Wavves is rich with emotion, offering a nuanced account of Monkman's
own journey of pain, sobriety and healing. Much of this journey is implied
even in the band's name, which is derived from the Ojibwe word Zoongide'ewin,
meaning "bravery," "courage" and "the Bear Spirit."
On "Infinite Horizons," as drums echo, collaborator Jesse Davidson says,
"This is my attempt to reveal our truth in your language," before describing
how he understands his past pain as strength: "strength of oneself, strength
in numbers, strength to protect my people and our future from the pain your
ancestors cut into our DNA. With one last journey into the sun let the fire
be the ritual. Cleanse my spirit from this underserving pain."
The standout closer, "Help Me Understand," whirls with a haze of guitars and
thrumming traditional drums, creating an expansive, looping soundscape that
seems to transcend shoegaze. Like much of Bleached Wavves, it's intricate and
subtle, familiar yet inventive, and rich with layers of life and sound.
Zoon's debut album is nothing short of remarkable.
Coming in on a slow fade appears "Brokenhead", a lolling monster of an
instrumental. If the Chemical Bros were in a band this is perhaps what they
might sound like. Slow builds, drops outs and big beats reappear all the
while a fuzzed-up guitar drones out a compelling melody.
Another sound experiment follows in "A Perfect Sunset". The influence of
Kevin Shields' work on segues for Loveless apparent here, and welcome.
For the first time we hear the strum of an acoustic guitar as we enter "Light
Prism". A gorgeously-textured ballad with complementing guitar and vocal
lines. All the while a reversed guitar sample snakes away in the background.
This track is an album stand out for me with its sumptuous production and
glowing instrumentation.
"Infinite Horizons" is next. A spoken word piece over a wall of feedback and
droning guitars punctuated by a tribal beat. This sets us up nicely for the
baggy beat of "Landscapes". Swaggering in like Bez circa 1990, this one has
all the attitude. A marching, bouncing instrumental which threatens to
explode with every riff.
The album closer returns to the tribal sounds with "Help Me Understand". A
psychedelic guitar accompanies a tribal drum while Daniel's vocals are very
much sixties influenced. A David Crosby vibe is what I'm picking up. A
fitting close to an amazing album.
This album is great shoegaze, there's no denying that. However, it is so much
more. Repeated listens reward the listener with new layers of detail, new
sonic surprises that you missed on previous listens. That for me is the sign
of an artist who cares about their listener. Someone who puts in the extra
work to make their music timeless and peerless. Will we still be listening to
this album in thirty years and getting excited about it? I think so, and I
also think that it will attract more and more people to its honesty and
openness through the years. I await the next Zoon album with great excitement
and I know you will too.
*
Shoegaze - by its very nature - can often seem stagnant. The lo-fi
vulnerability of Isn't Anything, the swooning guitar work on Souvlaki or the
airy melancholy of Cocteau Twins all loom so large over the genre that most
bands under the shoegaze label will be inevitably compared to any and/or all
of them at some point. With Bleached Wavves however, Daniel Monkman a.k.a
Zoon has merged the template laid out by those bands with the hypnotic sound
of traditional Indigenous music to craft one of the most exciting and unique
Canadian records of the year.
Across the 29 minutes of Bleached Wavves, Monkman seeks healing from
generational trauma, racism and the long-lasting effects of colonialism
within the record's shimmering instrumentation. "Was and Always Will Be" is
structured like an Indigenous chant while on "Infinite Horizons", Monkman
provides a thick instrumental backdrop to a poem from Spoken Word artist
Jesse Davidson. "This is my attempt to reveal our truth through your
language/several times while travelling to the sun I was faced by the ghosts
of my ancestors," Davidson says before adding: "they explain it is them who
saw me born into so much pain/pain that I now attempt to hide from your
people/I understand that pain now, I know it is strength."
For its heavy themes however, Monkman knows when to let the record just rock.
The distorted house-like dance of "Landscapes" feels like some sort of
distant relative of My Bloody Valentine's "Soon" while the instrumental noise
pop of "Brokenhead" recalls Dandy Warhols at their heaviest. Along with
artists like Kraus and Ringo Deathstarr, Monkman clearly knows when to use
percussion to propel the music forward.
If Bleached Wavves suffers, it's when Monkman lets the percussion fade into
the background or disappear completely. The slow motion dreamscape of "Light
Prism" is pleasant but feels the least uniquely Zoon-like on the album while
the two tracks "Clouded Formation" and "A Perfect Sunset Ahead" are far too
short to leave any kind of meaningful impression.
Monkman has crafted an exciting debut record that - with rare exceptions -
feels like it has its own unique identity among the plethora of dream pop and
noise pop bands coming out of Canada.
*
Behind the mysterious name Zoon is the word zoongide'ewin, which means
bravery and courage in the Ojibwe language and symbolizes the bear spirit of
guitarist Daniel Monkman. That force has driven reconciliation, the
unprecedented union of two musical cultures, which he calls the
moccasin-gaze. The Hamilton-based artist draws inspiration from traditional
First Nations rhythms. and the brilliant guitarwork of Kevin Shields of
shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine, to create a blend of sounds that reflect
his personal history. Born and raised in Selkirk, Manitoba, Monkman was at
odds with his Indigenous background during his youth, falling into a vicious
cycle of addiction in an attempt to escape his trauma and hardship.
Eventually, reconnecting to his heritage and saved by his passion for music,
he immersed himself in a personal and spiritual quest described on this debut
album. With only a guitar, a Fender Deville amp, and a DigiTech delay pedal
as tools, the artist manages to create fantastic sonic waves, voluptuous and
intoxicating, delicately psychedelic and sometimes subtly rewound, as if to
better unspool the thread an old cassette listened to in a loop. Produced
with the help of Montreal artist Rishi Dhir (Elephant Stone), Was & Always
Will Be transports us into a state of therapeutic hypnosis, creating a unique
and radiant inner feeling. He also collaborates with Indigenous hip-hop
artist Wolf B on "Infinite Horizons" to affirm and confront a painful truth
buried in his past. On this highly successful debut album, Monkman embraces
his ancestors' historic wound and heals it with a rich, oceanic, colourful,
and life-saving soundscape, where he can finally spread his wings freely.
*
Zoongide'ewin's debut is a poised, poignant, and profoundly moving symphony
of sound and style.
Whether he realizes it or not, Daniel Glen Monkman has produced his first
symphony. There is no better way to describe Bleached Wavves, Monkman's first
full-length as Zoongide'ewin (Zoon for short). Even though he uses the term
"moccasingaze" to describe his melodic wall-of reverb take on droney guitar
rock, Bleached Wavves is a multi-suite concord of sound and style that's so
much more than a mere rock record.
Opener "Clouded Formation" is something of a cacophonous red herring for
what's to come. Think of it less as a song, and more the sound of Monkman's
orchestra tuning up for the breathtaking suite of songs that follows. Except,
of course, there is no orchestra: it's all Monkman. He's the composer,
conductor, and pretty much the entire company, having assembled the bulk of
Bleached Wavves on his own. As "Clouded Formation" comes to a calamitous
close, Monkman waves his baton and lets the real magic unfurl.
Coalescing from tendrils of swirling guitar motifs and coils of reverb, the
second song "Vibrant Colours" lives up to its name and position. Released in
early 2020 as a primer for the record to come, "Vibrant Colours" is like a
sonata, serving as both exposition and extrapolation. The song's lyrical
themes explore Monkman's Ojibwe heritage, his relationship with his
grandparents and the aftermath of their deaths, and coming to terms with his
substance dependency. As he's explained frequently, Zoongide'ewin means
bravery, courage, and the Bear Spirit in Ojibwe - qualities that Monkman not
only leaned on to face racism, poverty, and his health concerns, but ones
that inform the whole of Bleached Wavves.
From "Vibrant Colours" on, Monkman develops, refines, and recapitulates the
concept of "moccasingaze". "Was & Always Will Be" waltzes like an adagio,
adding what sounds like sitars to the mix of strings. "Light Prism" is a
mid-tempo minuet, a delicate dance between Monkman's sun-kissed singing and
the gauzy atmospherics he orchestrates. But it's three tent-pole movements
that ultimately gives Bleached Wavves its symphonic flow and structure. Along
with "Vibrant Colours", mid-album masterclass "BrokenHead" and closer "Help
Me Understand" are polychromatic delights, codifying Monkman's skill and
insight as a songwriter and musical visionary.
If you consider that the word symphony is derived from a Greek word meaning
an "agreement of sound", it's hard to argue that Bleached Wavves is anything
but. Its swirling sounds are overwhelming in the same way that visceral
memories can open the gates to an emotional deluge. Once the feelings start
flowing, there's no stopping them. And yet still, in a record of such dense
musical scope, depth, and complexity, Monkman makes space for his humanity
and spirituality to shine through. That to me is the true agreement in
Zoongide'ewin's poised, poignant, and profoundly moving debut: amidst all
that marvellous musical chaos, clarity emerges.
*
There is a certain distance you gradually develop as your twenties slip away
and you cascade into your thirties. It's false to say that you always fall
into the same musical hole, constantly returning to nostalgic favorites,
although the distance from days of youth and the struggles and suffering of
those spaces does suddenly begin to make once-painful things sweet again.
There is, however, a certain type of music for those tapped into the indie
and punk worlds that seems to thrive specifically on a kind of young
adulthood youth, the wilds of college years and what comes immediately after.
Those records continue to be made, year after year, but your ability to
connect as fully with them begins to fade as adulthood sets its hooks in.
It's not a matter of judgment or quality (or lack thereof); perspective
changes along with the contours of life, and as such the music that cleaves
best to those curves begins to shift.
Which makes it such a pleasure when something like Zoon comes along,
delivering a record that even the most cynical would have to acknowledge is a
pretty damn accurate My Bloody Valentine pastiche, and you find that those
spaces aren't just pure nostalgia traps. Obviously thinking generally,
shoegaze has had a hell of a decade, whether it be new bands, reunited
favorites dropping career-defining records late in their lives or all the
fusion styles from hip-hop to electronica to black metal that have cropped
up. But when confronted with something like Bleached Wavves, a record that
quite clearly is an attempt for Daniel Monkman to get guitar hero Kevin
Shields under his fingers, it becomes refreshing precisely because we are
re-confronted with what feels like the genuine article, only to find that it
still holds up, still rings true, all these years later.
To address the most obvious criticism first: yes, Bleached Wavves is pretty
much a straight-up Loveless clone. There are a couple reasons why this isn't
a bad thing. First and most obviously, have you heard Loveless? Even beyond
that, Bleached Wavves is the debut of Zoon, and debuts have a special kind of
leeway to be more forthright and wear their influences on their sleeves a bit
more boldly. This is, after all, where a young artist cuts their teeth; we
tend to expect artistic maturity to come some number of records later, not
right away, with most artists who seem to emerge fully-formed having a secret
back catalog of demos and obscure releases under their belt before their
"debut." Hell, even My Bloody Valentine themselves were a bit of a clone at
first, albeit molded more after The Cure and Bauhaus-style reverb-laden goth
rock than the shoegazing gods, greatest of all time, that they would become.
The third and perhaps biggest reason why this isn't so much a concern is
because of the frankly stellar job Monkman does with his replication. In a
world where extra channels in a Logic session come cheap, Monkman did things
the old-fashioned way, having to wrangle a lot of economy and space out of a
single guitar and limited pedals. It's not that old is better or limits are
automatically good, which is just Luddite sophistry, but more the sense of
getting the most value out of a sonic idea, something clearly present all
over Bleached Wavves. It is a genre exercise in no uncertain terms, and so
taking seriously even the limitations of what Monkman sought to emulate
become important considerations to really get everything fully under the
fingers, something he does remarkably well here.
The sonics are genre perfect, clouds of glitched out digitalist clouds
choking out the breathable air, implied skyscapes of purple and hot pink and
glassy striated whites. Shoegaze at its best is pure image music, invoking
the smudged space between psychedelia, early prog and krautrock in
ocean-bodied swirls. Zoon nails this and even adds in an extra dash of the
drum machine-driven Madchester flair these sonic ideas would develop into off
of the back of Loveless to boot. Most shoegaze replicants of the 21st century
seem more interested in that middle space between the early peak of the genre
and when bands like Lush and Ride and Swervedriver took a turn toward rock in
the wake of grunge and Brit-pop; not so for Zoon, who see more familiarity
with groups like The Stone Roses and James as fitting partners for their
Shieldsian guitar swirls. The result also cuts through one of the biggest
critiques of modern shoegaze, that being its terminally despondent nature. No
slight to Nothing, a brilliant group certainly, but it is refreshing to get
some shoegaze that is neither a morose dirge nor, in the case of later-era
Slowdive, increasingly abstracted pointillist approaches to the genre.
Bleached Wavves feels as brimming with life, vigor and youthful unbridled joy
as Loveless did before it, arising from feelings of terror and confusion but
bursting into an earned and driven optimistic smeared cloud of life. It is
unspeakably refreshing to remember that shoegaze can feel like this.
And all of this without mentioning the plaudits of Monkman as an indigienous
Canadian of the Ojibwe tribe of First Nations people. The origin of the name,
it turns out, is derived from the word "Zoongide'ewin," its shortening
allowing both a '90s angular flair alongside a touching tribute to his
heritage. This element of the group can justifiably be remaindered to this
necessary footnote not because representation isn't important (it desperately
is, especially among native peoples, a group who in North America, South
America and Australia all face intense oppression from what amount to the
people who stole their land and destroyed their lives) but because the music
is powerful, well-executed and emotionally resonant enough without it. The
fact that such a great record was delivered by such a hand becomes an added
grace on top; if it wasn't a highly recommended record before, it undoubtedly
becomes one in the wake of learning that. There are First Nations folk music
influences dappled across the record, but you would be forgiven for not
spotting them immediately, given how seamlessly Monkman is able to blend them
into the clouded tapestries of sound at hand. If anything, this is perhaps
the most fertile vector for future records from him, given how deftly he has
already mastered Shieldsian guitar pop; the thought of a more fully-embraced
indigineous connection with his music is an intoxicating thought.
But ultimately future directions are for Monkman decide, not us as critics or
listeners. Whatever it will be, I'm certain it will be good and
well-conceived. Everything about Bleached Wavves leads me to strongly believe
this to be the case. In terms of a strong-as-hell career-starting debut, it's
hard to argue with fruit as fertile as this.
Because Monkman's influences are wide, the sounds on Bleached Wavves are
varied, but never beyond cohesion. On the title track, guitars whirr and
pulse, recalling MBV, and on "Light Prism," they plink and wail, like
something off a Slowdive record. The influence is clear, but it's not
distracting: both tracks feel like astute observations of the genre, honing
in on its elements to subtly evoke nostalgia, longing and hope.
Bleached Wavves is rich with emotion, offering a nuanced account of Monkman's
own journey of pain, sobriety and healing. Much of this journey is implied
even in the band's name, which is derived from the Ojibwe word Zoongide'ewin,
meaning "bravery," "courage" and "the Bear Spirit."
On "Infinite Horizons," as drums echo, collaborator Jesse Davidson says,
"This is my attempt to reveal our truth in your language," before describing
how he understands his past pain as strength: "strength of oneself, strength
in numbers, strength to protect my people and our future from the pain your
ancestors cut into our DNA. With one last journey into the sun let the fire
be the ritual. Cleanse my spirit from this underserving pain."
The standout closer, "Help Me Understand," whirls with a haze of guitars and
thrumming traditional drums, creating an expansive, looping soundscape that
seems to transcend shoegaze. Like much of Bleached Wavves, it's intricate and
subtle, familiar yet inventive, and rich with layers of life and sound.
Zoon's debut album is nothing short of remarkable.
*
"Like much of Bleached Wavves, it's intricate and subtle, familiar yet
inventive, and rich with layers of life and sound. Zoon's debut album is
nothing short of remarkable." 9/10 - Exclaim!
"Zoongide'ewin's debut is a poised, poignant and profoundly moving symphony
of sound" - Dominionated
"Bleached Wavves is the perfect name for a shoegaze album deeply evocative
yet highly enigmatic in equal measure." - Apple Music
"Thick, hypnotic shoegaze may be Monkman's mode of sonic expression, but
there's a deep appreciation for humanity that underpins his music." - Paste
Magazine
Zoon's highly anticipated debut album, Bleached Wavves, is finally here.
Bleached Wavves has already received glowing reviews in Exclaim and
Dominionated, in addition to several artist features and video premieres in
American Songwriter, BrooklynVegan, Talkhouse, and Post-Punk, among others.
-=- 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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