{"id":280665,"date":"2025-11-13T15:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T15:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/280665\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T15:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T15:50:12","slug":"a-shoegaze-reinvention-to-soundtrack-an-endless-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/280665\/","title":{"rendered":"a shoegaze reinvention to soundtrack an endless summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

As she did the press rounds for this latest album, her third, Harriette Pilbeam spoke often about self-acceptance and creative freedom. The suggestion, seemingly, was that she feels \u2018Liquorice\u2019 is as close as she\u2019s yet come to realising and expressing the exact sound that she has in mind for Hatchie<\/a>. Less reliant on hooks and pop<\/a> structure than its predecessor, 2022\u2019s \u2018Giving the World Away\u2019, the record instead embraces the heady reverb and scuzzy guitars of Slowdive<\/a>, My Bloody Valentine<\/a> and, most notably, Cocteau Twins<\/a>, serving up a sort of breezy pop reinvention of the shoegaze blueprint.<\/p>\n

The record is arriving in late spring in Pilbeam\u2019s native Australia, which feels apt; written in Brisbane and Melbourne and then recorded at Jay Som<\/a>\u2019s home studio in Los Angeles, this is a thoroughly sun-kissed album, unfurling hazily like a seemingly endless summer. Stylistically, she casts a wide net, even if it feels like she\u2019s painting from a more limited palette than on \u2018Giving the World Away\u2019, which flirted with the dancefloor in its disco<\/a> and new wave leanings. There\u2019s chirpy, experimental pop (\u2018Only One Laughing\u2019, \u2018Sage\u2019) as well as ventures into rockier, more pointed territory; \u2018Wonder\u2019 takes the crunching guitar of My Bloody Valentine\u2019s \u2018Loveless\u2019 and smartly sets it to a melody that evokes Britpop.<\/p>\n

Pilbeam has been described as writing dream pop for as long as she\u2019s been releasing music, with certain influences worn proudly on her sleeve as far back as debut EP \u2018Sugar & Spice\u2019 in 2018, and she seems to have a sharp sense of both sides of the genre\u2019s coin. \u2018Anchor\u2019 is pure Cocteau, leaning into blissed-out formlessness, whilst the standout \u2018Lose It Again\u2019 nods to important groups on the dream pop periphery, particularly The Sundays.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Throughout \u2018Liquorice\u2019, her lyrics meld handsomely into the sound of the songs; there is bittersweet longing and swooning romance, often in the same song \u2013 the gorgeous \u2018Part That Bleeds\u2019 takes clear inspiration from Richard Linklater\u2019s Before trilogy. There is a consistent preoccupation with the escapism that infatuation can offer, too \u2013 at least, until the superb closer \u2018Stuck\u2019, on which Pilbeam suddenly snaps out of the reverie that \u2018Liquorice\u2019 conjures (\u201cSeems I\u2019m stuck with these pathetic dreams\u201d).<\/p>\n

Whether or not the record represents, as she\u2019s suggested, peak Hatchie probably depends on what you\u2019ve come to expect from her. Fans of \u2018Giving the World Away\u2019 might be disappointed to find that she\u2019s retreated, somewhat, from the ambition and sonic diversity of that release. This kind of sound, though, is what Pilbeam does best; she doesn\u2019t just ape her influences, but channels them with nuance and empathy. The result might be the finest dream pop record of the year.<\/p>\n

Details<\/p>\n

\"hatchie<\/p>\n

Record label: Secretly Canadian
\nRelease date: November 7, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As she did the press rounds for this latest album, her third, Harriette Pilbeam spoke often about self-acceptance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341,2742],"class_list":{"0":"post-280665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-pop"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}