More Ancient Than The Rocks Between Us

Avalon Emerson “Sandrail Silhouette”

“Sandrail Silhouette” has a lot of familiar elements of shoegaze – the guitar rhythm and tone and the vocal melody and delivery suggest this is the work of someone who’s heard My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless so many times that Kevin Shields and Belinda Butcher’s mannerism have been fully internalized. Avalon Emerson could’ve stopped there and had a pretty good song, but she went a little further by adding a string section and horns and ended up with something sublime. I love the way the hook played by the string section feels slightly separate, as though the shoegaze elements are something superimposed over a more “solid” musical structure. The vocal part is also foregrounded in a way that goes against shoegaze convention, drawing on the context of how these sounds are arranged in other songs to imply that in this one you’re getting a crisp and clear image of something that’s typically obscured by clouds.

Buy it from Bandcamp.