Dreamy Vibes: Shoegaze/Dream pop artist Inframell0w enchants on new EP.
Shoegaze and Dream Pop have undergone many interpretations by artists and bands through the years. But few artists have been able to reproduce the original sound with such precision. Until now. Enter Inframell0w: the 22 yr old Italian, also known as Tomasso La Rocca, is reviving the genre 2021 style. And it’s a dream come true.
The first time I heard Inframell0w’s track, “Starry”, I was amazed at how well LaRocca had managed to truly revive ‘80s Shoegaze. “Starry”, the first track off of Inframell0w’s debut EP, is a cool dance through the night. The droning reverb and echoes in the first 30 seconds of the song create a mood that helps you to lose your head in the darkness— a feeling which only becomes amplified by La Rocca’s soft, enchanting vocals that echo in the haze from everywhere. “Where are you going, where are we going,” La Rocca calls out on the track. And the only answers are the reverberating echoes from a lonely guitar.
Haunting and dreamy, and filled with lots of influence from The Jesus and Mary Chain, it’s clear this track is a total tribute to shoegaze/dream pop for the most part. Halfway through, however, a repetitive “tonight, tonight” shines through the hazy echo. The way in which La Rocca sings the lyrics , it’s almost as if he mixed in a partial cover of Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight” Shoegaze style. It’s very captivating. While “Starry” had me hooked on this brand new artist, I was even more entranced with “Sour Cream.”
If “Starry” is a dance through the night, then “Sour Cream” is a surreal slow dance through a dream. Overflowing with echo and distortion this dizzying dream pop waltz pulls you into the spin fast and makes you crave more. La Rocca’s ethereal vocals that echo out from every angle amplify the dreamy state of mind this song more than just delivers on. From beginning to end of the song you quite literally “feel like you’re “in a dream” as La Rocca sings.
“See You There” is arguably the most light and fun track of the EP. The track opens with an overpowering thought echo as La Rocca ponders about the “a landscape inside the color of your eyes.” But the distorted, blurred out feelings evaporate fast once The Cure inspired guitar comes into play. Then Inframell0w (La Rocca) really gets into the groove of things . A tropical almost reggae beat takes over the song and it becomes fun. The “Just Like honey” of Inframell0w’s debut EP does not disappoint, at all.
“Half Angel” brings back the droning hazy reverb of “Starry” while bringing back the tropical feel of “See You There” and the slow waltz feels of “Sour Cream”. But unlike the three of the previous songs, La Rocca opts for more “oh’s” and more vocal layering on this one, along with more solo instrumentation. “Half Angel” is more of an experience track — it’s where you come off the dream like high of the previous three songs. And the lyrics describe each of the songs on the track. First, you “fall into a way to feel good, away from what I don’t know” — “Starry”. Then, you “need to love” on “Sour Cream”. And finally, you “walk into a way to feel good” on “See You There”. Notably borrowing elements from all three of the previous tracks, “Half Angel” really is the perfect wrap up track to transcend reality and come down from the high of the listening experience.
It really amazes me how well Inframell0w was able to captivate the spirit of shoegaze/dream pop as it once was. He’s not just good at this stuff, he is excellent. He attributes his ability to really shine at producing these to a few things: “It’s really the shoegaze feel, I can’t hide it. I deeply love everything that revolves around it and the music I grew up with, so I consider all this to look in the mirror with sincerity. Thanks to my parents I got to know a good part of New Wave and Brit Pop soon when I was a child and to this I added a varied path that then led me to shoegaze around 15 years old,” La Rocca says. He also notes that “during the writing and production phase of the songs I listened to a lot of material belonging to the mid 90s and early 2000s including Trip hop, dream pop like Ivy or Mandalay but also a lot of ethereal wave from the Cocteau Twins school like An April March, Autumn’s Grey Solace and Velvet Belly . I think this had a lot of influence on ‘Half Angel’ where a glide guitar crawls to a baggy drum beat where I felt the need to float a 909 drum machine kick.” And it’s obvious there is a lot of influence from of the above mentioned artists in Inframell0w’s style. I could find it on almost every track, and most notably on “Half Angel” in the some of the guitar work. But at the end of the day, Inframell0w, aka Tomasso La Rocca, really is more like a modern Jesus and Mary Chain than anyone else.
“I have been trying for a long time to compose through guitar textures in a spontaneous and emotional way, later coming to find shapes for songs,” La Rocca says. And just as his music name states, he’s definitely got a knack for mixing the elements. “I combined ‘’ mellow ‘’ with ‘’ infra ‘’ simply because I like to alternate, mix different sensations,” says of his music name . And we certainly experience those mixed sensations on his debut EP. The whole EP really is “a dream.”
Check out his EP on available music streaming platforms and experience the dream yourself.
