Saturday, January 12, 2008

Airiel - EP



For a band that has been around for the better part of 10 years and releasing records for the past five, Airiel still remain one of Chicago's best kept secrets. I feel ridiculous having never heard of them prior to a year and a half ago because they were right under my nose the whole time, playing the kind of shoegaze/dream-pop I can't get enough of. They released several EP's, that were later collected as the Winks and Kisses box set. Each EP is excellent in its own right, but I chose to post the self-titled EP to start, if only for the songs "500 Deep" and "Cinnamon" which rank among my favorites. I will post the box set in the near future.

Also, the band released their excellent debut LP in 2007 entitled The Battle of Sealand. It's a bit more psych meets the more rocking Swervedriver end of the shoegaze spectrum and less ethereal dream-pop, but a fanastic record nonetheless. It definitely made my top 25 for the year, so check that out as well should you stumble upon it. The song produced by Ulrich Schnauss is an intriguing direction for them and one I wish they'd explore more.

Airiel - EP
Airiel on Myspace
Buy the EP

2 comments:

Matt said...

did that come out on cd as well? the full length

Stephen said...

yeah it did