Shoegazing started out as a guitar-based genre, seeming to require layer atop opaque layer of gauzy guitar feedback in order to achieve its swoon-inducing combination of pop hooks and sonic disorientation. Then M83 came along early in the last decade and showed that the same vertiginous effect could be achieved with glistening sheets of keyboards as with shrieking guitars, and the shoegazing/dream-pop genre got a fresh second wind as a result.

Stockholm’s Maria Lindén definitely attended the M83 school of dream-pop, and her band I Break Horses (name courtesy of a Smog song) puts what she learned to good use. “Winter Beats” begins with a shimmering synthesizer pattern, then Lindén slowly piles layers of droning synths, guitars and her own vocals atop it until the entire song breaks into a climactic gallop during which the original synthesizer pattern seems to morph into a broken funhouse mirror version of itself.

Lyrically, Lindén warns of emotional shutdown as a relationship begins to cool. “Don’t let that cold blood freeze” she sings, invoking the winter beats of the title – that time when the warmth of affection dies out, leaving behind only “frozen love.” The music she builds around her words has a sort of sad, glacial majesty that ultimately turns frenzied, as her struggle against the winter beats becomes more passionate. Lindén isn’t going to let love turn cold without a fight in this song.

While the icy keyboards of “Winter Beats” seem to operate with a detached cool, Lindén reveals a warm heart at the song’s core. The wave of keyboard based shoegazing bands kicked off by M83 may at times feel a little less organic than the older wave of guitar-based ‘gazers, but I Break Horses proves that they can be every bit as human.

You can check out “Winter Beats” and eight other tracks on I Break Horses’ just-released LP, Hearts.

Click here to listen to Hearts on Spotify.

If you liked this song, you should also check out:

Bell Horses “Dust of Us”

The City and Horses “A Thousand Lashes”

CREEP “Days (Azari & III remix)”

Listening to “Hologram” by the band Founds is to hear the sound of young Scandinavia crossed with the English countryside. The track sounds like a mix between Sigur Ros and The Sundays and Shelleyan Orphan, all moody Icelandic art-rock leavened with a dash of pastoral British alterna-folk. It’s a sound that seems to embody the upper latitudes of the northern hemisphere.

So it’s a bit jarring to discover the band actually hails from Brisbane, Australia – a city with a sub-tropical climate perched at the edge of the Coral Sea about midway between Sunshine Coast and Surfer’s Paradise. The image “Holograms” conjures up is of wintry fjords or rainy meadows, not of a large urban/beach resort area just up the coast a bit from where gold-bikinied meter maids are making sure the surfers never get parking tickets.

Chalk it up to some people just being displaced on the globe, because no matter where they’re physically located Founds have the north Atlantic in their souls. The vocals (by either Kirstie or Elle-Louise – I’ve not found a source that identifies the members in any way beyond their first names) have a definite but unidentifiable lilt to them, sounding alternately like the Icelandic Bjork, the Irish Dolores O’Riordan, or the English Harriet Wheeler. Musically, the band explores the swirling dream-pop of Sigur Ros with a bit more forward momentum than the Icelanders usually care to exhibit but with the same upward thrust. Founds are not afraid to rock while they dream and the way that “Holograms” builds to its soaring climax is a thing of beauty.

It’s difficult to think of a location that would seem less suited to produce first-rate Scandinavian pop than a beach community in the southern hemisphere, but Founds have managed to do it. Like the hologram of its title, the Aussie combo has managed to conjure up a more than lifelike image of something where logically it ought not to exist. Founds have managed to relocate the edge of the Arctic Circle to the Pacific tropics.

Founds released a digital single of “Holograms” as a free download on their Bandcamp page this past June.

If you liked this song, you should also check out:

I Break Horses “Winter Beats”

Trentemøller “Sycamore Feeling”

It’s hard to believe, but dream-pop progenitors Damon & Naomi have been making music together for a quarter of a century–first over the course of three albums as two-thirds of seminal indie act Galaxie 500 and for the past two decades as their current eponymous act. Over the span of this tenure the pair has given shape to entire musical movements across the indie spectrum, influencing a swath of acts including Death Cab for Cutie, Low, Mazzy Star, and Mojave 3. Any band whose music has turned ponderous and spacious over the past few decades likely owes a debt of gratitude, directly or otherwise, to Damon & Naomi.

These days, the act is sporting a new album in the form of the recently released False Beats & True Hearts. While the tunes are new, the sound is familiar to anyone who has followed the duo or its many followers. After a searing (and arguably somewhat misplaced) guitar introduction by frequent collaborator Michio Kurihara of Ghost, “Walking Backwards” settles into the sort of sedate groove Damon & Naomi all but patented. Damon Krukowski handles lead vocals on the cut, letting his words hang in the air with backup from Naomi Yang, and soon the whole affair carries the hazy, psychedelic-tinged flavor that has become their calling card.

In the track’s chorus, Krukowski sings, “For I’m not the kind / who lives forward in time… / It’s all that I can do/ Is walking backwards with you.” He may as well be delivering a message directly to Yang, providing commentary on their illustrious past together and the notion that, despite so many years united, the duo have never strayed too far afield from the brand of dream-pop they built together. There isn’t any shame in that, and with his lyrics Krukowski seems to concur.

If you liked this song, you should also check out:

Naomi Shelton “What Have You Done?”

Electric President “Safe and Sound”

Bell Horses “Dust of Us”

The 16-year-old Swede Amanda Mair is drawing lots of comparisons to Kate Bush and it’s easy to see why. Not only is she an appallingly gifted teenager who was plunking out mature-beyond-her-years piano pop outside the music industry spotlight (Bush in her parents’ farmhouse outside London, Mair at her home on an island near Stockholm), but like Bush, she also attracted the attention of an established pop star in her native land who brought her to the attention of his label.

Granted, the touring drummer for Club 8 is not exactly on the same level of stardom as David Gilmour was when he famously championed the precocious Kate, but the demos said drummer recorded of the then 15-year-old Mair were impressive enough to catch the attention of the peerless Labrador label. For the last several years, Labrador has been one of the most reliable labels on the planet, releasing a seemingly endless string of sublime Swedish indie-pop (see: The Acid House Kings, Pallers, The Radio Dept., Sambassadeur, The Sound of Arrows, et al). Based on the promise shown by her debut single “House,” Amanda Mair should have no trouble helping Labrador extend their winning streak.

Produced by Philip Ekström from The Mary Onettes / Det Vackra Livet, “House” swells from a stark piano ballad to a dramatic epic, topped with Mair’s remarkably self-assured vocals. Where a 16-year-old obtained the life experience to pen such a mature and regretful look back at a failed relationship is anyone’s guess – the lyrics for “House” are a far cry from mopey teenaged diary entries and compare favorably to old pros many times her age. Mair was one year old when the former “new Kate Bush” Paula Cole bequeathed the world the lines “Open up your morning light / And say a little prayer for I,” yet one gets the impression that the self-possessed Mair would’ve given that couplet a few more rewrites before committing it to tape (and she’s not even a native English speaker).

It’s not possible to predict an artist’s entire career based on the first song they ever release. This may end up being the only decent thing Mair has to contribute, but that seems highly doubtful. At the very least, the young Swede has leapfrogged to the front of the line of artists to watch. It’s definitely going to be interesting to see how far she can progress, considering that she still has half a decade to go before she even reaches the ripe old age of the 21-year-old Adele.

If you liked this song, you should also check out:

Kathryn Calder “Slip Away”

Teletextile “What If I”

Beach House “Norway”