By It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the sweetly synthy sounds of June LaLonde’s FLOATING ROOMS and the vintage indie rock energy of Starflyer 59’s LUST FOR GOLD!
June LaLonde – FLOATING ROOMS
Genre: Indietronica, Synthpop
Favorite Tracks: “Heartfelts,” “Grey Eminence,” “Dama Dama,” “Petrichor”
Upon my revisit a decade after its release, June LaLonde’s geometric alt-dance odyssey FLOATING ROOMS is still wondrous. The talented Minneapolis-based artist’s vivid mapping of time, place, and atmosphere through vibrant synthpop and coiling bitpop continue to sound enormous. FLOATING ROOMS is an apt title: each track is a tiny glimpse into another room, housing another facet of her glowing, prismatic sonic palette. Of LaLonde’s beautifully sprawling discography, it’s this album that’s perhaps her first neat distillation of everything that encompasses her musical world.
LaLonde’s unique sculptural timbre gives these songs their distinctiveness. “Heartfelts” beams with incessant elation as its keys chime at a lovestruck heartbeat pace. “Through Mountains” opens with constrained strings, then falls into a kookily ascending and descending melody like scaling the peaks and troughs of an anomalous mountain. A groovy bassline recalling Everything Everything at their apex underpins the dancey “Patina.” A more brilliant display of LaLonde’s instrumentation is on “Dama Dama,” which moves robotically but retains a naturalistic flair with gorgeous acoustic noodling. Said flair appears on the effervescent closer “Milk Eye,” graced by vivacious, skittering indietronica.
The vocal-laden songs expand on LaLonde’s maximalist ventures. “Grey Eminence” is a shoegazing, dense desert-like synthpop voyage where her voice soars, and she’s sweetly accompanied by her partner Trivia on backing vocals. The booming soundstage is laid out as if trying to arduously traverse through gusts of sandy fog, conjuring an exceptional atmosphere like no other. The piano-centric “Petrichor” is in the same vein as many of the energetic tracks, but is a triumph for its profound wholehearted words: “Every part of me / Begs to heal for you / And I swear I’ll find my strength / And I swear I’ll heal for you.”
LaLonde may have her distance from FLOATING ROOMS—her output has exponentially grown since, bestowing more colorful and impassioned noises upon the world. Her 2021 self-titled album is a more refined and authentic representation of everything she’s about in a single project, given her conscious attempt to do so, but attaining that confidence comes with learning on the way. To the outside observer, FLOATING ROOMS might seem impersonal, but it was a necessary stepping stone for LaLonde to get to her place today where she can revel in personal emotional valiance. It proved successful, as this lovely collection of the utmost spirited indie pop still strikes a chord. Another run of cassettes are set to arrive via Shatterfoil Industries, so do yourself a favor and pick up a copy once they release. You can check out LaLonde’s dazzling electronica on Bandcamp. [Dom Lepore]
Starflyer 59 – LUST FOR GOLD
Genre: Shoegaze, Alternative Rock, Alt-Country
Favorite Tracks: “Lust for Gold,” “YZ80,” “1995”
Starflyer 59 hasn’t been a shoegaze band for nearly two decades, but on their seventeenth album, LUST FOR GOLD, Jason Martin and company dip back into that old well. The Southern California band was one of America’s premiere shoegaze groups—and a massive influence on many of the genre’s current torchbearers—before pivoting toward a more straightforward alt rock sound. LUST FOR GOLD calls back toward the pillowy, MBV-indebted sound of SILVER, GOLD (hmm), and AMERICANA while retaining the vocal-forward melodicism of the material that followed—Martin’s husky vocals break through the haze on “YZ80” and “Everyone Seems Strange” enough for the hooks to really pop, and “My Lungs” is as catchy as anything he’s ever released. There’s even a helping of alt-country on here, in the album’s back half, just so everyone knows Martin’s keeping up. “No Sweat,” in particular, should really grab anyone still swooning over RAT SAW GOD. It’s a fascinating turn for Starflyer 59 twenty years later, but they seem as comfortable as ever. Don’t take my word for it, though; pick it up on Bandcamp and see for yourself. [Zac Djamoos]
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