“Astronomy” by The Golden Awesome

Day 13 of PopLib’s 31 Days of May celebrating New Zealand Music Month is another Psychedelic Sunday so here’s “Astronomy” by Wellington ‘shoe-gaze’ noise band The Golden Awesome.

“Astronomy” is from an album called “Autumn” The Golden Awesome released on the US M’Lady’s Records label which is a bit hard to find round these parts now.

Although ‘shoegaze’ tends to be the genre most often used in relation to The Golden Awesome there is a healthy a dose of The Jesus and Mary Chain about the crushing bass guitar and swarming feedback guitar drones on some of the tracks on “Autumn” as well as the kind of swooping sonic overload and sweet melody associated with heavy ‘shoegaze’ favourites My Bloody Valentine which you can hear in “Astronomy”.

The mix of crushing saturated walls of glorious drone noise and breath-taking dream-pop melody is a feature of the album. The keyboards and the distinctive harmoniser processed vocals are from Dunedin musician Stef Animal and you can find out more about who else is in this low-key band in this rare UTR interview.

At the 5 minute mark in the video below you can watch the band playing “Astronomy” live at the Radio KDVS studio in Davis California when the band toured the US West Coast a few years ago.

“Autumn” by The Golden Awesome

The Golden Awesome is a ‘shoegaze’ guitar & keyboards band predominantly from Wellington, NZ. They released an album called “Autumn” in 2011 on the US M’Lady’s Records label which is a bit hard to find round these parts now. Here’s the title track which opens the album:

Although ‘shoegaze’ tends to be the genre most often used in relation to The Golden Awesome there is a healthy a dose of The Jesus and Mary Chain about the crushing bass guitar and swarming feedback guitar drones here as well as the kind of swooping sonic overload and sweet melody associated with heavy shoegaze favourites My Bloody Valentine.

That mix of crushing saturated walls of glorious noise and breath-taking dream-pop melody is a feature of the album. The keyboards and the distinctive harmoniser processed vocals are from Dunedin musician Stef Animal and you can find out more about who else is in this low-key band in this rare UTR interview.

Here’s the wonderful trippy video for “Autumn” too: