Do Wop Dream Pop
This Wednesday, walk over to the Northrop Summer Music Festival to make your afternoon a poppy sunlit daydream. A U of M and Twin Cities’ favorite, student band Gloss will be rocking the mall for a starry-eyed audience this Wednesday, July 31st at noon on Northrop Plaza. Jimmy John’s will be making lunchtime dreams come true with free sub samples (get there freaky fast!). Plus, the Northrop team has giveaways galore for participating guests and tweeters of #rockthemall13. Minnesotan dream pop band Gloss, boasting melancholy in a celebratory way, is about creating a pervading feeling of staring out the window on a lonely train ride through a sunlit swamp that’s in full bloom.
Definition Dream Pop: Music that makes you think about unicorns and lasers and flying through space.
More technically, dream pop is an atmospheric subgenre of alternative rock that relies on sonic textures and pop-structured melody. Trademarks of the sound include breathy vocals, spacious echoes, de-emphasized beats, synthesizers, and an ethereal feel. Though influences on the genre can be traced as far back as the 1940s – the sparkling “Stardust” and “Dream” by Frank Sinatra followed by "All I Have To Do Is Dream" from The Everly Brothers and "Mr. Sandman" by the Chordettes, with more refinement in the 1960s and 70s with The Beach Boys in “Pet Sounds” and George Harrison’s echo-drenched album All Things Must Pass – modern dream pop actually originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s. Bands began fusing post-punk and ethereal wave elements with pop melodies to build dreamy "soundscapes." With a focus on mood rather than riffs, dream pop is submergence into relatively new world of music and Gloss is the best at taking you there.
Self-proclaiming influences from the galaxies of Dream Pop, Jangle Pop, Shoegaze, and Post-Punk, this five-piece band will be bringing guitars, drums, a bass and synthesizers to the stage next week. The longtime friendships of lead Jeff Cornell, guitarist Sean Neppl, and bassist Jack Woolsey (who all went to middle and high school together in Eagan) merged early with synthesizer Emmy Carter and Minneapolis newbee, drummer Jordan Bleau. Just recently celebrating their three year anniversary, an eager media frenzy can put a lot of pressure on a young band and yet, according to a March article from The Current, despite the swell of attention and pressure for more music, Gloss is making sure they like their songs first and foremost. Gloss’s debut single, “Front Porch” has recently caught the attention of the Twin Cities music scene and has been receiving regular airplay on both the Current and Radio K. And now the Twin Cities are decidedly shifting the Gloss spotlight from friendly house basements to coveted local stages. The combination of two strong songs and an entertaining live performance has garnered Gloss well-deserved attention within the local music community – and likely to infinity and beyond.
“Music is a way of self expression, not trying to meet expectations from others.”–Jeff Cornell, Gloss vocalist and guitarist
Listen: “Front Porch” and connect with Gloss here!
