It’s a little scary when you look at a compilation CD and you realise that that a number of the songs are not far off a quarter of a century old. The track listing for the third instalment of Soma’s Sci-Fi Lo-Fi is handled by Rob Da Bank and it is a bit of a shocker when you see a great number of your favourite songs defined as retro. Its probably even more shocking that they’ve managed to get a whole compilation album under the ‘shoegazing’ umbrella. They’ve played a bit fast and loose with the definition of shoegazing but its a decent collection of songs that will polarize opinions very quickly.
It touches on the guiding lights of the genre with Ride, Chapterhouse and Slowdive as well as including acts better known for other sounds such as The Jesus & Mary Chain, Dinosuar Jr and Spiritualised. The inclusion of ‘Just Like Honey’ and ‘Freak Scene’ gives the album more drive and impetus than most people would expect from such a collection so don’t believe its going to be full of dirge like tunes that would struggle to find a chorus with a map and melody magnet. There is also a modern(ish) edge applied with Boards of Cananda, M83 and Maps providing entries from the current millennium and ensuring its quality as opposed to a strict representation of the genre name on the box.
‘When The Sun Hits’ by Slowdive and ‘Nowhere’ by Ride are perfect examples of what the music papers said this style of music was all about and you should head here if you want a history lesson on what that this brief flurry of introspection was all about. You also get the feeling that Andy Bell is channelling more of his Hurricane #1 musical approach into his current bass playing duties with Oasis than anything from the early years of Ride.
The delightful vocals of Elizabeth Fraser are always a highlight with ‘Cherry Coloured Funk’ having a cinema like feel and its probably a credit to the entire album that a lot of the songs have cropped up in movies and will be more recognisable than you may have first thought.