milk crate

Hooverphonic’s first album, A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular, is a bit of an outlier in classic trip hop. Unlike all the classic trip hop albums we have from the likes of Massive Attack and Portishead, Hooverphonic takes in influences from shoegaze, giving it a strange dreamlike feeling. This feeling isn’t nostalgia to me; it’s something much stranger and weirder. Mark Fisher wrote a couple of times about what he called “Lost Futures,” those futures we thought of in the past that never came to fruition: the aesthetics of cyberpunk, the flying cars of early science fiction, etc. And a lot of trip hop does feel this way, including Massive Attack’s Mezzanine, giving us, in 2026, something that could have been, something that was lost—that we haven’t heard from in years and could only glimpse in something like Lana Del Rey’s song, “A&W.” The feeling I get from Sound Spectacular though, is something much different. It’s not a future lost, or never began, no, when I listen to the album, I am listening to something happening at the moment, as if, despite coming out 30 years ago, in 1996, it still feels of our time.

Only Kinoko Teikoku’s earliest three projects are truly shoegaze. They stand as relics of a short-lived period when the band created some of the most prodigious music of the genre, regardless of era or style. If in writing this I send them to their cultural death-in-revival, then let this also be a plea. Kinoko Teikoku: please get back together and tour the U.S. and play the two greatest Japanese shoegaze albums of all time.

If you’re at all tapped in to the world of alt R&B, you likely already know her name: Rochelle Jordan. She made appearances on popular electronic-groovemaker KAYTRANADA’s 2024 album TIMELESS and the 2023 collab EP Lover/Friend. But if dance-pop is more your speed, you’ve likely already danced your way through her solo output—some of the finest house music since Azealia Banks got pseudo-cancelled for the nth time. Jordan’s sound is a sensual melange of genres, pulling from hip-hop, slow jams, drum’n’bass, and U.K. garage to make songs that get you out voguing on the dancefloor and follow you all the way back to the lounge-heavy afters. Her third and most recent album, 2025’s Through The Wall, is her most infectious project to date, with a glitzy high-production pulse that just doesn’t let up. Neither, for the most part, did the energy of Jordan’s show at the body-packed Paradise Rock Club on Monday.

At its heart, Unrest’s music has always been moved by desire, and their final album was no exception. It’s a romantic, restless, and somewhat reckless landmark of the indie-pop genre. Each and every track is humming with the tumultuous push-and-pull of youth, its lyrics replete with intimate confessions and fleeting connections. Perfect Teeth is authentically vulnerable in a way that still resonates decades later as a true indie-pop expression of longing.

Anniemal, as a whole, was welcomed with open arms by the indie scene and music critics alike. Through sheer word of mouth, dance-pop had suddenly earned a seat at the table in indie music. With tracks that commented on class, like the title track, or freaky, slinky breakup songs like “Always Too Late,” Annie reshaped a genre that was at times campy or cheesy into something undeniably cool. They weren’t songs about huge emotions, or parties for the end of the world, but rather songs about life. Friendships and nights out and one night stands, and I guess manic Spice Girls. It could be argued that, without Anniemal, dance-pop may never have gotten the respect it deserves.