• Pow Magazine

    Dig this! Dean Wareham: Interview and Velvet Love Letter

    It’s hard for me to recall the first time I heard Dean Wareham. This musical moment most likely hit in a midwestern, red-bricked dormitory. Tune your time turning musical transport to 1989-1990. Let us revisit the salad years of an under-utilized undergraduate college. The VU-soaked, jangle-garage vibe was in heavy rotation on the college radio airwaves of that personally seminal era. I read a lot of music mags at the time, too. I recall the full-throated critical endorsements of the Velvets on every best-of and must-have list of the indie and commercial rags.   In 1990, I was a poorly dressed, bespectacled college sophomore skipping my required reading for beer benders…

  • Audio,  Music Reviews,  Pow Magazine

    The Love Dimension – Balance Album Review

    San Francisco has long produced great psychedelic music, and The Love Dimension’s newest album – Balance – is no exception. A little blues-rocky, a bit surf-rocky, and a whole lot of psychedelic, Balance is a journey into the San Francisco soundscape of the 60s through a modern lens. The journey through Balance was really enjoyable – all of the tracks are fantastic in their own right. However, I feel it’s better to take time to go into depth on a few select highlights of the album rather than each song on the album. This album had really unexpected opening and closing tracks: Frogs of Meadow Creek and Frogs of Meadow…

  • Audio,  Music Reviews,  Pow Magazine

    Dream Pop and Shoegaze — Dream Aloud by HEAVEN Review

    Back in April, NYC-based shoegaze band, HEAVEN, released an LP on Little Cloud Records called Dream Aloud, which is filled with elements of rock, dream pop, and synthpop. HEAVEN engages a sense of nostalgia in this album, reminding me of some of my favorite shoegaze records from the mid-90s to early 2000s. I really enjoyed the journey that this album took me on, but I’d really love to highlight some of the best tracks off the record. Starting off with the LP’s title track, Dream Aloud, we’re brought along a more gentle ride. Leaning more into dream pop than shoegaze, Dream Aloud is the most nostalgic-sounding track. I love the…