We're proud to announce the release of a Nugaze compilation by Tom Elliot! Tom has put together a stunning compliation representing the Nugaze movement with bands from Australia and worldwide. Pre-order a copy! See below for Tom's foreword:

Almost two decades ago I was lucky enough to experience the rise of what turned about to be an ephemeral, yet hugely influential, style of music called ‘Shoegazing', which emerged largely from the Thames Valley region of England. This label, coined by cynical music journalists at New Musical Express in 1991, seems to have been derived from the habit many of the genre's practitioners had of staring intently at their feet and vast array of pedals while performing on stage.

The original shoegazing bands like Ride , Moose , My Bloody Valentine , Lush , Chapterhouse and Slowdive , turned the indie-dance music movement of the early '90s on its head. Suddenly the popularity of the Madchester Scene dominated by the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses began to wane, and in its place came the guitar feedback drenched ‘Wall of Sound' that so typified shoegazing.

Shoegazing's antecedents ranged from work by the Velvet Underground in the late '60s, to the Jesus and Mary Chain's seminal album Psychocandy in 1985, to psychedelia at almost any stage and perhaps most importantly to the aforementioned Wall of Sound technique developed by musical effects pioneer Phil Spector. The first time I saw Ride live, in late 1990, they performed in front of pub audiences around Oxford; the last time, just 16 months later, the same band packed out London's famous Brixton Academy.

Although shoegazing is impressive in the recorded format, it is undeniably best experienced live. In 1990 and '91, and without paying any heed to the potential damage I was doing to my hearing, I saw an average of at least one band a week, many of which later became judged classics of the genre. Live performances that still stand out in memory include those by Curve (often described as the group where shoegaze and goth collided), the Boo Radleys (playing support to Ride ), Catherine Wheel and even Radiohead , then known as On a Friday .

After I returned to Australia from the UK in 1992, I was pleased to find that a number of local bands were clearly influenced by the shoegazers. Antipodean groups worth checking out from this era include Sydney's Swordfish , NZ's Bailterspace and of course both Ripe and the Underground Lovers from Melbourne, the latter that I must've seen live at least a dozen times.

In the last few years there has been an increasing number of signs suggesting that shoegazing is enjoying a well-deserved resurrection. For those who missed seeing shoegazing's leading lights live the first time around, groups like Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine are now touring again. It was through an occasional slot on Melbourne's Triple R radio station where I played all-shoegaze music that the idea behind this compilation came together, as a new generation of bands has emerged to fill the void the original shoegazers left behind.

Simon Castricum, creative force behind Melbourne group Fluorescent and a collaborator on this compilation, pointed out to me in 2006 that Myspace lists ‘shoegaze' as a genre that musicians can nominate as a major influence. Thanks to a group of bands sometimes called ‘Nugazers' (New Shoegazers), the genre is positively flourishing. The 16 nugaze groups selected for this compilation are amongst the best I've come across. This new crop of bands hail from places as geographically diverse as NYC ( Soundpool and The Invisible Kid ), San Francisco (Echodrone and LSD And The Search For God), Germany ( Malory ), Denmark ( Rumskib ) and, of course, Australia (Fluorescent and MistandSea).

Although electronica was rarely employed by the original shoegazers, bands like Fluorescent and Ceremony now make heavy use of it to good effect, and there's no doubting the post-punk influence on the Peter Hook-esque bass riffs generated by The Offering . Yet the classic psychedelic influences of late ‘80s/early ‘90s bands like The Telescopes can be keenly felt in work by the aptly named LSD And The Search For God , Air Formation 's dueling guitars produce a feedback fuzz sure to please the most fussy purist and Echodrone 's ‘Here We Are' is comparable to Ride at its very best.

While most people may not have been fortunate enough to experience shoegazing reach its original zenith in 1992, the nugazers represented on this compilation prove the movement is as alive now as it's ever been.

Prisonshake began in 1986 out of the ashes of the early 80s hardcore punk scene in Cleveland. Like so many bands spawned in Cleveland's post-industrial shadows, Prisonshake walks a fine line between old-school rock songwriting and avant-spuzz structure-demolition. Spearheaded by Robert Griffin – who started the Scat Records label to release Prisonshake's output and also went on to release records by My Dad Is Dead, Guided By Voices, Mono Men, Electric Eels, The Mice and many others – the band released a dozen singles, EPs, and several albums from 1987 to 1992 on Scat and in Australia, on Rubber Records, including the undeniable classics I'm Really Fucked Now and A Girl Named Yes .

Dirty Moons is the band's long-threatened double album. An underground Chinese Democracy , if you will, over decade in the making. Dirty Moons' recordings date from 1995 to 2007. It didn't seem like a long time until a few years added up to five, and then? Disillusion.

Right off the bat, one can't help but notice the guitars here. This is a shameless rock and roll album, where guitar solos, passion, syncopation and fingertips are celebrated. The group are native speakers of rock language and have done it long enough to have their own dialect, in terms of playing voices (yes, drums have a voice, too) and songwriting / arrangements. The group is also blessed with the sublime talents of principal vocalist and lyricist Doug Enkler, who has a rare knack for putting words to ambiguous human moments (when he isn't being a smartass), and who is able to hit emotional chords without being confessional or lovesick.

Dirty Moons – an odyssey of donk.

Released October 25th.

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