Notes from the North: Goodbye Wudaokou, bloom effect, Dual Effect, SEATAPE

The days are slowly getting shorter, but there’s still loads of music out there we’d love you to hear. So, here’s another in our irregular series, Notes from The North.

Goodbye, Wudaokou – Only Questions

The musical project of Manchester-based Mat Mills, Goodbye Wudaokou gives us a taste of the upcoming LP to be released via Subjangle. Only Questions has a very ‘Manchester’ sound, with slivers of New Order and Inspiral Carpets piercing the lo-fi aesthetic of the production as Mills sings about “first loves, their tendency to fail and the marks they leave.”

bloom effect – itero

Hailing from Vancouver but with members from Canada, Argentina, and the UK, bloom effect demonstrate the internal appeal of shoegaze on itero. The dual vocals have a hypnotising manner to them, as the band adds the smoother overlays of dream pop to an arrangement bursting to the brim with deliciously produced reverb guitars and driving percussion.

Dual Effect – Black As Your Heart

Dual Effect singer Tye Rutherford and producer Tristan McGarrigle fuse lightly coloured vocal melodies and elements of 80s-facing pop and rock on Black As Your Heart. There’s an undercurrent of post-punk, but the overall tone of the track is one that draws from the pop pomp of Duran Duran and the indie accessibility of acts like Deacon Blue, but also modern acts like Bloc Party and AFI.

SEATAPE – Moving

There’s a strange desolation to Moving, despite the song comprising layer after layer of shoegaze and dream pop. Maybe it’s the starkness of the vocals or the lo-fi ambience of the production, but the track leaves you looking more to Joy Division than Slowdive or Beach House, but that is what gives Moving by SEATAPE such an edge.