nosomu | sound - noise - music /review/+fadeinfadeout/

I hadn't heard them before but Landing have made themselves quite a name in the US indie scene. 'Fade In / Fade Out', a gentle melodic guitar drone almost uninterrupted by beats, partakes of the shoegazing legacy of bands like Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, and other less knowns. Part of the credit goes to the ethereal heritage of Cocteau Twins and their followers as well. 'Fade In / Fade Out' sounds above all like Slowdive, is in fact quite indistinguishable from them, especially from their '5 EP' period. This kind of music certainly isn't surplus nowadays (as it might seem), on the contrary - if albums like this continue to appear, we'll soon see the whole scene shoot up again. 'Whirlwind' is one of the best tracks I've heard this year, and I'm not a particular shoegaze fan - at least for a long time not any more. What makes this track stand out is its glorious melody, breaking in after the curbed beginning. Later on typified airy female vocals are added into the beatific mix, blending in like just another sound sample (which they obviously aren't). It's a flight over the misty territory where guitar, shoegaze, ambient and drone meet, Landing, if not in the bullseye, then close enough.