PRE-ORDER - EXPECTED MID APRIL
Double LP
Double LP edition (300 copies) of Eastern Europe's first shoegaze album, featuring the 1993 John Peel Session as a bonus.
Originally released in 1992, „Popsubterranea” holds the distinction of being Estonia’s first shoegaze album. But it wasn’t the country’s first foray into indie music—three years earlier, that milestone had already been claimed by the same quartet, Röövel Ööbik. While their debut album, „Ilu”, was a reckless, provocative, and swaggering indie rock statement, „Popsubterranea” saw them channeling their energy into a more immersive sonic landscape, where the raw urgency of pop and rock collided with krautrock’s hypnotic grooves and shoegaze’s lush, erotic, and dreamlike harmonies.
Tõnu Pedaru’s exultant, wavering, and half-whispered vocals, Tarvo Hanno Varres’ brooding basslines, Allan Hmelnitski’s airy yet razor-sharp guitar textures, and Raul Saaremets’ fiercely dynamic drumming didn’t just fit the shoegaze mold—they reshaped it. „Popsubterranea” didn’t attempt to mimic the prevailing aesthetics of the era’s shoegaze heavyweights; instead, it carved out its own space, fusing noisy transcendence with an unmistakably Nordic sense of cool detachment.
Röövel Ööbik’s sonic tremors even reached the ever-curious ears of legendary BBC Radio 1 tastemaker John Peel, who invited the band to record a session at his iconic Maida Vale studios. They became the first Eastern European band ever to record a Peel Session, a testament to their singular sound and boundary-pushing spirit. The group embarked on a grueling 2,000-kilometer bus journey to London, and on April 17, 1993, their four-session tracks aired on Peel’s show, cementing their place in the annals of underground music history.
Now, for the first time, „Popsubterranea” and its Peel Session companion are available on vinyl—a long-overdue reintroduction to an overlooked yet essential piece of shoegaze history.
Following their shoegaze chapter, Röövel Ööbik ventured into electronic dance music.
But that’s another story.
