Peel Dream Magazine - Agitprop Alterna

New York's Peel Dream Magazine continue to evoke the most precise Indie nostalgia imaginable in their new album Agitprop Alterna very much as they did in their first, Modern Meta Physic released a couple of years back. To be specific, their nostalgia is focussed almost solely on the peak records of My Bloody Valentine and Stereolab with perhaps a pinch of the likes of Ultra Vivid Scene, Lush and that whole first English Shoegaze wave thrown in for good measure.

This is a strange record to listen to as the influences which have brought it into being are almost inescapable at every moment of the listening experience. Agitprop Alterna rarely justifies its own existence as anything more than starry eyed devotion to its sourcces, but its songs are well crafted and the journey is smooth and mellow.

Imitation they say is the sincerest form of flattery and this is undoubtably a very sincere record. You might question whether the talent clearly at play here might be chanelled with greater ambition and scope as really this is almost entirely an act of Indie archeology for devotees of this sound. I imagine they'll be grateful and perhaps Peel Dream Magazine's records will encourage some to discover My Bloody Valentine and Stereolab's records for the first time.

As for the likes of me, who experienced the originals first time around almost three decades back, I'm not entirely sure what I think. What's going on here reminded me of an Adam Curtis interview I read a couple of years ago where he talks about the 'static culture' that we are all a part of to a greater or lesser degree these days. Read it, it's very interesting. As he opines: 'It's very odd. It's almost like a terminus railway station in a city where all the trains just keep on arriving and nothing ever leaves.'

That's not to say that I don't like Agitprop Alterna. I do. I like the things that Peel Dream Magazine like. I just don't fully understand the urge behind its creation. Stil, a record that will happily wile away the best part of an our for many listeners without once inspiring the awe and astonishment that spending the time with Isn't Anything or Emperor Tomato Ketchup instead might deliver.