One Day We Pretended To Be Ghosts shines a light on the shady, futuristic sound of shoegaze yet to come, ready for the new generation to step forward and zone out. This new musical generation is fortunate in that it shares some sonic similarities with the genre’s predecessors, the like of which flows through the life-blood of the music. A link to the past is there, but it is a faint one in this day and age. As essential as DNA, the blades of distortion and the candy-sweet vocals never leave the genre alone in the dark.
Admiration for the classic bands, such as pioneers My Bloody Valentine (who, on recent form, are still the kings) and Soft Moon are there, but One Day We Pretended To Be Ghosts is darker than both. The pitch-black sound is a refreshing wave in an already dark, almost psychotic hallucination, spiced with some laminated noise and the powerful surge of distorted guitars. Soft, dreamy vocals perfume the harsher points of light, and the beats pound from dusk to dawn.
The spiky distortion lashes out against conformity and the accepted social norm, and it revels in its rebellion, kicking out in unison with the rattling gunfire of the drum. Bursts of strobe lighting issue from a live current of raw electricity. It’s alive, and it has something urgent to say. Razor sharp despite the distorted blanket of fuzz, Winkie live on the noisy rocks just outside Brooklyn, New York. The neon night-life is waiting for you. The pretty pink dress of the outer female vocal cascades against the harsher wash of a jet black harmony, and a blockbuster beat rubs up against the abrasive tones and grainy textures.
“To Die A Thousand Romantic Deaths” tunes itself into the pulse of the drum, radiating a beacon of black light as if it were the apocalyptic siren of warfare. Trippy flanger effects hook up with passionate vocals that smash against the tribal drum. The layered fuzz and the steady, pounding drum brings back lovely memories of Belong’s Common Era. And as the drum thumps, it carries with it some kind of indistinct threat. And then, on “Death At The Heart Of The Disco”, the rusty glitter ball crashes down and the synths start to lurch like a zombie. The pounding drum machine of “Vacant” loops on and on, shining the running red harmony onto the pink vocal shade. Shoegaze has mutated, and just as the present influences the future, its origins remain.
And the beat goes on. (James Catchpole)
a closer listen 