What sort of shoegazer are you?

[ShoeGazer64]

I always see people mainly mention My Bloody Valentine when talking about shoegaze, but that's just one end of the spectrum. On the other end are bands like Slowdive and Levitation. While MBV hammers your brain with sheer volume and distortion, Slowdive drowns you in a warm ocean of reverbs, delays and modulation. Levitation is pure 60s psychedelia, updated for the late 20th century. All of it is good, but none of it sounds the same, in the way that, say, metal or Doom does.

 

[Mincer]

More ambient. Think Fripp & Eno.

 

[ShoeGazer64]

I haven't listened to Fripp in quite awhile...although I enjoyed a lot of what King Crimson did, I found his playing just too discordant. I haven't really heard much of his ambient stuff. I do enjoy Eno though.

 

[Mincer]

I haven't listened to Fripp in quite awhile...although I enjoyed a lot of what King Crimson did, I found his playing just too discordant. I haven't really heard much of his ambient stuff. I do enjoy Eno though.

Some of his ambient stuff doesn't really sound like it was guitar-generated. But he was a pioneer when it comes to playing with long delays (in those days, 5 seconds?) done with 2 reel-to-reel recorders.

 

[ShoeGazer64]

Back in the early 80s I was taking an electronic music course in high school. We discussed frippertronics. Having 2 Teac A3440s reel-to-reel recorders in the classroom, we experimented quite a bit with loops.