by Conor Lochrie (@conornoconnor)
New York City composer and multi-instrumentalist Joe Stevens founded his DIY outlet Peel Dream Magazine in 2017. He’s been releasing exquisite shoegaze music both familiar and unfamiliar since then. His sound carries the trademark swirling noise of the genre (escapist music in the time of quarantine) that makes one feel at once connected and disconnected, involved and dissolved, but there is more to consider here than other shoegaze contemporary companions. While Stereolab, Ride, and obviously, My Bloody Valentine, are ingrained in all such bands, it's rare to find one with Stevens’ level of intelligent lyricism which is so in evidence on new album Agitprop Alterna.
Where they sound most like their influences is on the opener “Pill,” so similar to My Bloody Valentine that the vocals immediately conjure the whispering delivery of Bilinda Butcher; it feels like an actively wry opening homage to the golden age of shoegaze that inspires them because from then on Peel Dream Magazine’s own sound comes through. “Brief Inner Mission” and “Wood Paneling Pt. 2” offer general and lighter fare to disrupt the dissonance, which is always needed on a shoegaze record.
It’s the vocals and songwriting that help this rise above the overwhelming fuzziness that unfortunately enshrouds other shoegaze followers. “It’s My Body” is a lovely and light song, Jo-Anne Hyun and Stevens’ harmonizing breezily and effortlessly; on the preceding “Emotional Devotion Creator,” it’s Hyun’s delicate delivery that carries us along with the noise. Just like Butcher and Kevin Shields, the male and female interplay that permeates this record is a welcoming interjection.
On his previous album Modern Meta Physic, Stevens played almost everything himself and the addition of backing helps fill out the sound on this new record (Kelly Winrich, drummer Brian Alvarez, and vocalist Jo-Anne Hyun). Songs like “NYC Illuminati” are full of blaring guitars and heavy synths and “Permanent Moral Crisis” is distilled with fuzzy feedback.
This is esoteric and cerebral rock. On last year’s EP Up and Up, Stevens said “I wanted to talk about the current popular music scene through the eyes of Bertolt Brecht, who warned that audiences become susceptible to mind-control when they take popular art at face value.” A song on this new record is devoted to that influential German playwright (‘The Bertolt Brecht Society’) and even the use of Agitprop (political propaganda, especially in art or literature) in the album’s title defines this as highbrow music, clearly, but Peel Dream Magazine’s quality ensures its never pretentious or fawning. It’s clear that Stevens thinks consciously and acutely about the meaning of his music, which is often missing and thus becomes a critical target that plagues hard shoegaze records.
Perhaps owing to the otherworldly impact that the initial shoegaze movement had, modern attempts are often met with disdain but Peel Dream Magazine deserve to be appraised on their own, such is the quality of the songwriting and musicianship. They manage to encapsulate the historic spirit of their genre while flourishing it with their own textures and discoveries. There’s a lot to look forward to when Stevens feels ready to give his listener’s the third album.