WL//WH Review BLURRED CITY LIGHTS
After 2018’s “Volker” LP the superteam Blurred City Lights recently released their brand new opus “Micropolis” LP ( January 14, 2022) with 11 brand new consecutive courses on what is called #shoegaze_music. But who is BCL?! The band comprises Dean Garcia; the legendary guitar player from the 90’s pioneer shoegaze act Curve, and then with SPC ECO, KGC, STFU, Inkraktare, and as a solo artist too. Dean Garcia has also worked in the past with other significant names like Jeff Beck, Eurythmics, and more. You can check our interview with this very important instrumentalist HERE where we talked about the past, present, and future, back in 2020.
The next player in BCL is Jarek Leskiewicz who is also a very skilled musician from the new generation of the ‘gazers worldwide. He is involved in BCL since their debut release “Neon Glow” EP (2013) as well as in other ‘strange oddities’ like Opollo, Naked On My Own, and Sunset Wrecks. One thing that connects these two men is their ‘common dialect’ on the well-known issues such as the construction of ‘tubes’ and ‘walls’, and the creation of ‘sonic winds’ that carry away everything – the shoegaze experimentation with an always good reason.
Dean Garcia handled the Bass, Drums, Guitars, Vocals, Keys, and Programming, while Jarek Leskiewicz ‘competed’ with the other Guitars, Drones, Vocals, FX, Bass, Keys, and Programming too….as in a coordinated attack, as in a dance of the elves.
Credits also to Rose Berlin from SPC ECO, Vocal and Words on “All My Days” & additional Voices (5/8). A trip-hop mostly persona and the daughter of Dean Garcia; like the apple falling under the apple tree, she is great too!
As you understand already we have one phenomenal record release that was created to stand away from the entire mainstream paths even if these paths are a bit alternative too. BCL creates music for the soul and the senses with striking results, like the painter who unveils a grandiose piece of art that will impose on its own in waves of admiration. This team makes records that need a certain time to understand them completely but right after will stay for a long time in the stereo. If you are a musician you will find great interest in
“Micropolis” LP, if you are a music lover you will admire their motion and their aesthetics, and if you just passed out of the window you will certainly ask the audience “excuse me, what are you listening to?….thank you very much”
I cannot give you focus tracks to start playing with but I can tell you that the album is NOT extravagant experimentation with situations and styles only, it is this kind of work that is placed at the same level as the most highly acclaimed modern shoegaze artists. It is that album that hides carefully inside the seeds and the fountain of the avant-garde motion in music generally. You will hear walls with guitars, eruptive basses, strict drumming like the ground that holds them all, enormous keyboards that play with the mood of the guitars, stunning cinematic melodies all over the album, and three voices from the shoegaze fantasy and the dream(trip) pop(hop) vision. Also, you will absolutely groove with the whole album as you will lay back to chill and disappear in it too.
Ladies and Gentlemen, here is the music of Blurred City Lights!!!
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Written by Loud Cities’ Mike