1998 Live in 2020

October 10, 2020 4:07 PM

Remember Hum? No? Okay. Remember "Stars?" Yeah. Thought you might. Hum was a very influential, very 90s shoegaze/space rock/alt metal band whose last release was in 1998. Wait, no, sorry, whose last release came out in 2020. It's called Inlet. It's pretty good! “Folding” is my favorite.

Here’s a couple reviews:
Post-Trash, Stereogum, Spin, Consequence of Sound

Hum Discography:
Fillet Show (1991)
Electra 2000 (1993)
You'd Prefer An Astronaut (1995)
Downward Is Heavenward (1998)
Inlet (2020)

Demos & Rare Tracks

posted by Lonnrot (32 comments total)

PS Look what Failure's been up to.
posted by Lonnrot at 4:09 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Not to threadpoop. But can someone explain shoegaze to me? All I can think of is Burroughs describing heroin. I have read about it, but it is usually described with other terms I do not get. Please help an old man?
posted by Splunge at 4:19 PM on October 10, 2020

Heroin seems spot on, says another old man...
posted by Windopaene at 4:29 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Not to threadpoop. But can someone explain shoegaze to me?

Usually droning, vaguely psychedelic slow jams that you can't really dance to, so the stereotype is that fans would just stare at their shoes at shows. 90's bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine are exemplars (and, well, the subject of this post, who I totally remember).
posted by rodlymight at 4:30 PM on October 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

Bush/Toadies/Hum triple bill in about '97(?) was a great night out.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:48 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

(cue faux outrage)

90's band? 90's band?

OK, I realize Edmonton was not exactly front-and-center of the eighties, but even up there we knew about The Jesus and Mary Chain by late 1985/early 1986, never mind the actual nineties.
posted by aramaic at 4:50 PM on October 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

Not to threadpoop. But can someone explain shoegaze to me? All I can think of is Burroughs describing heroin. I have read about it, but it is usually described with other terms I do not get. Please help an old man?
posted by Splunge at 7:19 PM on October 10 [+] [!]

In the words of Kevin Shields, "It's just pure noise for the hell of it."

But seriously it's basically loud, effects-laden guitar music following fairly conventional song forms.
posted by ZaphodB at 5:49 PM on October 10, 2020

“Stars” is another one of a short list of songs I thought was a cover of a much older song, the first time I heard it.
Unlike another instance, I don’t have an earlier memory of the earlier song. Just a feeling I can do nothing with.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:16 PM on October 10, 2020

It's more or less strung-out, noisy pop music. Called "shoegaze" because the musicians stared at the floor, possibly out of shyness but probably because they were focused on their effects pedals. My Bloody Valentine is the benchmark for many people, and their album "Loveless" is a good'un, but listen to other shoegaze bands to get a better sense of the breadth of the genre.
posted by ardgedee at 6:17 PM on October 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

Please help an old man?

Loveless
posted by aramaic at 6:18 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

In The Den.

Songs about living in a pre Culture civilization. Terraform that.
posted by Area Control at 7:06 PM on October 10, 2020

At the time, I admit I only knew of Hum from "Stars," because I was in my late-teenage malaise about what I thought underground music had become post-Nirvana and I was cynical about pretty much everything that was a hit. But again and again over the years, I've heard their name mentioned in hushed circles among some of the first-wave shoegaze artists I adored. Time to fix the oversight for real.
posted by mykescipark at 8:04 PM on October 10, 2020

Yeah, 'what if psychedelic rock, but grunge?' is probably an OK description.

Some others that come to mind for me: spacemen 3 (who more or less went on to be spiritualized) and maaaaaybe Brian Jonestown Massacre which is maybe more psych rock, but i also just kinda love spreading for the sake of it.

The Principality of Shoegaze shares a border with the Earldom of Dreampop, which is like a thousand times my thing. Mazzy Star will forever be a favorite.
posted by kaibutsu at 8:43 PM on October 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

so the stereotype is that fans would just stare at their shoes at shows

I thought the stereotype was that the bands would stare at their shoes - both because they were fairly introverted types and because each person on stage had twenty effects pedals.
posted by atoxyl at 9:15 PM on October 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

Whoops somebody already said that. Anyway it's basically wall of sound guitar pop with a dreamy aesthetic. Some shoegazers are more reverb/delay (like Slowdive) and some are more distortion (like MBV) but you gotta have one and they usually have both.
posted by atoxyl at 9:21 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

but even up there we knew about The Jesus and Mary Chain by late 1985/early 1986, never mind the actual nineties

well they were really more the predecessors to this whole thing

Anyway, this album is good. I like this one.
posted by atoxyl at 9:25 PM on October 10, 2020

I was always more on the pretty end of Shoegaze but my favorite band from that era and genre is Slowdive.

Also Cocteau Twins are one of the best things of the 80s and 90s but I hesitate to say they are Shoegaze even though their music can easily fit into that genre.
posted by chaz at 12:06 AM on October 11, 2020

PS Look what Failure's been up to .

They weren't kidding about being stuck on you till the end of time.

Man, there was a time when I thought that a loaded pedalboard for guitar was just the thing.

Obligatory Starflyer 59.
posted by StarkRoads at 12:51 AM on October 11, 2020

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!! This has to be my favorite MiFi thread of the year!
posted by james33 at 2:53 AM on October 11, 2020

This album is really good, what a genuinely nice surprise from 2020!
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 5:19 AM on October 11, 2020

What a find - thank you!
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:54 AM on October 11, 2020

I don't know if I'd call Hum shoegaze—they're more of in the vein of a Smashing-Pumpkins-esqe melodic indie, which makes sense given their Chicago orbit. For me shoegaze is always tied to an English-based movement, and more represented by the following bands (I'm omitting a few...):

Slowdive
Ride
Chapterhouse
MBV
Flying Saucer Attack (more esoteric)
Catherine Wheel (the first two before they went more "metal")

For an American take, check out Drop Nineteens first album, and early Galaxie 500. More modern takes have been Asobi Seksu, Whirr, and some of the later Blonde Redhead.

I'm leaving a bunch out.
posted by grimley at 6:00 AM on October 11, 2020 [4 favorites]

I still have a copy of You'd Prefer an Astronaut somewhere. Probably haven't listened to it in 20+ years. I liked that album a lot, although I don't think I ever met anyone else here in the UK who'd heard of Hum.
posted by pipeski at 6:54 AM on October 11, 2020

Somehow I didn't notice Hum during their heyday. Inlet feels very nostalgic. I agree with grimley that Hum was and is not shoegaze, but you can definitely hear the influence in their music.

I remember in various articles in the 90s the Cocteau Twins were occasionally bundled in with shoegaze , but these days they've been firmly slotted into dream pop and ethereal wave. A friend referred to them as proto-shoegaze, which works.
posted by Stoof at 7:34 AM on October 11, 2020

Talbott's post-Hum band Centaur is also worth checking out, although they only put out one album.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:21 AM on October 11, 2020

Cocteau Twins are too electronic and (usually) not distorted enough to be shoegaze but they definitely influenced it.
posted by atoxyl at 10:46 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

I didn't discover Stars until about ten years ago (via a mefi thread, actually). It felt like remembering a song I'd never heard before. I miss that 90's fuzzy sound.
posted by dephlogisticated at 10:55 AM on October 11, 2020

I need more guitar pedals.
posted by Lyme Drop at 11:53 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

About a decade ago, I recorded some drum tracks at earth analog, the studio Matt Talbott runs in central IL. I was pre-warned by my friend, the engineer for the session, not to fanboy out. When Matt came through the studio to check on things and say hi, it took a lot not to gush about Hum and how his music influenced me so much. But I somehow played it cool.

Despite 2020 being an absolute wreck in so many ways, the new releases by Shiner, RTJ, Fiona Apple, and this one from Hum have definitely helped me get through it.
posted by onehalfjunco at 12:14 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

what if psychedelic rock, but grunge?'

Before Nirvana and still today there is Dinosaur jr.

Just one more.
posted by vrakatar at 4:37 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

Man, the riff at 3:53 in Stars still kills me.
posted by gottabefunky at 6:06 PM on October 11, 2020

I agree with grimley that Hum was and is not shoegaze, but you can definitely hear the influence in their music.


Me too. Hum's sound is proto-hardrock/metal that came after grunge, drop D and those harmonized guitar notes. Hum and Helmet basically invented that genre.
If the singer had a more Eddie Vedder-esque wail and he hated girls a bit more, they would have been stars along side Creed, Puddle of Mudd, etc all the way to Nickelback.

Hum was also slightly more musically adventurous than those who copied their sound -the end of The Pod where it goes from grindingly loud to acoustic within the same riff sounds amazing.

The first half of You'd Prefer and Astronaut is strong - the second half is super quiet and slow, which is not my thing, but also something no shoegaze band ever did.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:12 AM on October 12, 2020