Tag Archives: the microdance

Stream: The Microdance – “Moopy Moop b/w Skulduggery”

I can’t tell you why I’ve been sitting on this one for so long. I think that either my mind is slowly (or quickly) decaying or I’m just really disorganized, or maybe it’s a little from column A and a little from column B.

The Microdance is a band based out of London that is creating some really great, textured rock. Shoegaze elements play an important part, to be sure, and are combined with a heavy new wave influence. Think The Cure and MBV getting together to create an album. Really, it isn’t quite as simple as that, there is more to it, of course.

There are a few things that stick out to me in “Moopy Moop.” The first of these is the way that to vocal goes from gently pleading in breathy gasps, to a straight up blood-curdling scream that makes my own throat hurt in sympathy. The other thing is that there is one particular chord change that reminds me of something off of The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Machina II” album. The Microdance captures that really bombastic and expansive guitar drenched sound in a similar fashion to Corgan and Co., but as I mentioned before they tend a little more toward the shoegaze side of things. It only makes sense, though, one listen to Gish and you’ll hear some of the same new wave/shoegaze interminglings going on. It wasn’t until Siamese Dream that the wall of aggressive, distorted, metal-ish guitars came into play.

“Skulduggery,” has a bit more of a shape to it than it’s flip-side. Dynamics play a more important role, and the vocal delivery maintains its breathiness throughout.  The latter third of the track, before returning to the chorus, shows the band willing to play a little bit within formal song structure, stretching out the loud-soft-loud template.

This double-A side single is currently available for download from The Microdance’s bandcamp site. You can also find out more about them on Facebook and their soundcloud page.