Short lived? What a wierd opening considering shoegaze is still going strong. For example, My Bloody Valentine finally released their long overdue follow up to Loveless to critical acclaim in 2013.
As far as the Thames Valley scene was concerned it was DEAD in 1993. The Swirlies were doing a shoegaze-type sound over in Boston and you had Curve still retaining some shoegaze sounds up until 2001 but otherwise no one was selling any shoegaze records after 1993.
Also it should be noted that only ONE of the songs on mbv was recorded in 2012 and the rest were somewhere between 5-20 years old. So its not really new shoegaze.
Finally if anyone liked this article check out music critic Chris Ott's series Shallow Rewards on youtube. He devotes two episodes to shoegaze and although they're a bit obtuse and pretentious there's lot of great info in them.
So many labels are cranking out the shoegaze right now. Captured Tracks, Slumberland, even Sacred Bones has a few shoegazy bands...
Hrm, Pitchfork gave mbv a 9.1. Maybe I'm misremembering, or maybe I have DeRogatis poisoning.
At least in the UK, the scene described in the article was fairly obscure even in its heyday, and by the mid-'90s it was remembered mostly as a slightly embarrassing pre-Britpop phase. Having watched it come and go the first time around, its post millennial resuscitation feels pretty weird.
No, please listen to them. I should listen to more of them myself. I loved Morningrise, but never heard much of Slowdive's other stuff simply because getting hold of music was expensive and difficult at the time.
> or discovering them if you weren't there at the time.
That's the bit that feels weird. A couple of decades ago they seemed destined for oblivion. Watching Lost in Translation with no advance warning was a very odd experience.
Also worth mentioning would be Jesu. Some of that stuff makes me cry like a child.
EDIT: clarity