Pine - PINE

No lie, if someone doesn't snatch up this copy of Pine's self-titled debut LP for the insanely low 15 I'm asking soon, I really will keep it all to myself. I'll hold out 'cause I need the money for reasons, but if this Shoegaze Power Trio from Ottawa doesn't completely knock your socks off, I'll just have to chalk it up to you not liking awesomeness.

People like to compare Dar to Hayley Williams, but I don't do that unless i absolutely have to, I just say she sings real good. Judging by social media they broke up in 2020, and that sucks, but then No Sleep isn't going to press any more any time soon if ever again, so i'm just making it harder and harder to keep it listed on bottlesmusic instead of relocating it to my personal collection and listening to it several times a day until it disintigrates. Their bandcamp page is still up if you want to check them out without handing me money.

So here's the thing, no matter how rich and famous you think a band or musician (or any other celebrity) is, they aren't. They own a corporation called whatever their name is, and if it costs 6.70 million to generate 6.72 million in revenue, then you made 20,000 dollars. If your accountant takes your money and puts it in a hedge fund or invests it in some other business, you are dependent on the success of that other business. You traded a lump sum for an annuity that, if everything goes well, will total more than the original sum. I'm not saying that's inherently wrong or bad, I'm saying it's deceitful to claim you have a 10 dollar bill in your wallet when what you actually have is two guys who each owe you 5 dollars and two weeks from now they might hand you a grand total of 7 or 13 depending on how their week went. 90% of musicians either have day jobs or are very hungry, and there's only so long you can be a real band for no money. 3 to 5 years is about all any regular band is ever going to get, no matter how good they are. Buy a copy of anything you like, it's statistically unlikely they'll get a chance to make more, and you can enjoy listening to it for practially ever.

But more important, what actually is Shoegaze? One school of thought says you have so many effects pedals that you spend the entire gig looking down to decide which ones to stomp on. Solidarity's the key, so the singer probably has their chin on their chest to avoid any possibility of eye contact with the audience. Send all that through 7 stages of reverb and you're good to go. The other school of thought says if it even vaguely sounds like Fade Into You by Mazzy Star you're in the right ballpark. Neither school of thought adequately explains why some people wonder if Deftones is Shoegaze. Deftones are their own genre. 

My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Ride are widely considered the pioneers of Shoegaze, and to a large extent it became an inseparable thread in the larger fabric of Indie Rock. Noise Rock is not Shoegaze, but Shoegaze is often noisy. If it sounds like staring at an Impressionist watercolor painting that hasn't fully dried yet, Shoegaze is as good as any other name for it.

Man this is good. I actually think Shoegaze came from Post-Punk. Not in the sense of bass-forward Gothic cemetery crooning, but in the sense of jangly, free-floating guitar chord noodling, and Emo-esque lyricism. Lotta feelings, very few of them straightforwardly happy, almost to the point of complete emotional dissociation. 

I don't know any Melissa Etheridge songs you can really dance to. I think In Your Eyes is about a step-parent. Most of the rest are typical failed relationship songs, it is a self-titled debut, so all over the place is totally normal. But my goodness does it transport me back to that early 2000s dark Alt-Rock head space. Glorious.

Edit: 2 days later someone bought it and 3 of its friends.  Sweeeet.