Shoegaze music is in a revival era right now, and one of the albums to rise from the ashes is Feed Like Fishes by Should. Numero Group has recently reissued the 1998 shoegaze album on vinyl - it's first time on wax.
The band was made up of brothers Marc and Eric Ostermeier and Tanya Maus. Looping cassette decks and samples, Feed Like Fishes took a more minimal, stripped back approach to the usual wall of sound that characterizes the genre.
The band practically only existed in the studio, as they only ever performed live four times. Yellow Springs resident and vocalist for Should, Tanya Maus, recalls how exciting it was watching Marc's creative process.
"I do have really vivid memories of recording our first album, A Folding Sieve, in 1992 and 1993. He [Marc] had a tiny little studio in a one-bedroom apartment in Austin, Texas. And just watching him hook up reel-to-reel audio, somehow magically connecting it to a computer was really, really cool to see and something I'd never experienced before. Seeing him play guitar and then play multiple tracks and layering all the tracks and singing on top of those was really exciting."
At the time Feed Like Fishes got a CD release on the band's own label, Words on Music and some press, but shortly after Maus had moved onto full-time PhD work and graduate school.
Decades later as Maus was commuting to work, she noticed an employee at Lumberton General Store wearing something that surprised her.
"The baker there had a My Bloody Valentine t-shirt on. And I was like,'Whoa, you got this My Bloody Valentine t-shirt on, do you listen to them? Do you know the band Should?' And she was like,'Yeah, I listened to them a lot when I was in high school.' So I told her I had been part of that band and so it was just kind of a mutual shock of like, people are actually still listening to this music that I thought was kind of dead and buried."
Shoegaze is very much alive and well, and one look at local show flyers will reveal that the younger generations are enthralled with the genre. The sound bath of shoegaze creates a respite that people cherish especially today says Maus.
"It's really a kind of music that you can disappear into. I think that's the intent. That continual layering of sound, and then just kind of the lack of differentiation in that sound and kind of just being able to sink into it. I read a little bit about what's happening, why people are interested in shoegaze, and I think some of that is just trying to find a space where you don't have to be differentiated from anything. People are saying they find that noise kind of peaceful."
Stream or purchase Feed Like Fishes by should on bandcamp.
