A big West Mineral favourite from 2023 finally gets introduced to the physical world with a first time vinyl pressing. No idea why we were made to wait, really, Shinetiac being a kind of supergroup/calling card for the WM universe, comprised as they are by Ben Bondy, Pontiac Streator and Shiner, and representing that very de rigeur interconnection of glitch ambience, post-shoegaze sensuality, trip hop futurism and dreampop dissociative-ness. If it hadn't got stuck in a revivalist deadzone, this might of what we'd seen at the inward-facing outer edges of shoegaze, where the inbetween-song passages of Loveless, the vast expanses of loveliescrushing and IDM's gleeful adventurism (think Plaid or µ-Ziq perhaps?) confer into one cybernetic organism, all clicks n cuts n coquettish invitation that's riddled with a kind of utopian joy. Joy isn't something often associated with music of this nature, and yet runs all the way through Not All Who Wander Are Lost, the dubby, gauzy textures offering a dream vision of future sound that's as inviting as it is wide reaching in its intentions.
FFO: Plaid, Ulrich Schnauss, µ-Ziq, Dregs
