Should – A Folding Sieve
Captured Tracks
It could well be argued that the presence of Lush and The Jesus and Mary Chain on the second Lollapalooza tour was in the long run more influential than that of many names higher up the bill. By spreading the archetypal shoegaze sound across the water — but without the sociological baggage that dogged it in its UK homeland — these groups eventually inspired a US-led second wave of shoegazing; bands that recognised the radical potential of guitar-based digital psychedelia where British critics saw only bad haircuts and mumbling frontmen.
A prime example is the second re-release in Captured Tracks intriguing new ‘shoegaze archives’ series, A Folding Sieve by Austin, Texas outfit Should. The band were known as ShiFt when the album originally came out on their local N D label in 1995, but changed their name soon after and have kept going, releasing their third album, Like a Fire without Sound, on their own Words on Music label earlier this year.
Now expanded to 18 tracks — from an original six! — A Folding Sieve more properly straddles the generic and historical boundaries between shoegaze and post-rock. The chilly minimalism of ‘Rolling’ gives way to the stunned languor of ‘Breathe Salt’; the stately MBV drag of ‘Feels like Morning’ and ‘Clean’ contrasts with the haunted, circular drum patterns and ambient synthesiser washes of ‘Resonate’. ‘Pulling,’ appropriately enough, pulls the two strands together into a pressurised sonic bubble that’s physically palpable; listening is like being strapped down in a rapidly descending jumbo 747. Marc Ostermeier and Tanya Maus’ twin vocals blur and blend into opiated androgyny, while previously unreleased bonus tracks like ‘Soothed’ and ‘Brass Burn’ — an electric gamelan stoked by charred guitars — stake out bold, imaginative territory that few others, let alone the shoegazing revivalists, have ever set foot in to this day. Ben Graham
