Dream-pop marshmallow queen Samira Winter has departed for the Summer, but the toxic surf of Z*L still bubbles.
And this is not an invitation to rob Winter’s apartment….but the day-glo vibe of her group Winter and their endearingly shambolic shows will be much missed over the next few months.
Gratefully though, Winter’s Bandcamp page is chockful of goodies that will have to do until I get, you get, we all get the required tangibles from her daffodil-filled paws. And then there’s the video….
Starting with the Daydreaming EP on Bandcamp here (also avail on CD), this is some hot stuff. Daydreaming‘s songs sound like they were cooked up like fried egg and avocado sandwiches on hot summer nights listening to the oldies station. Guitar effects pedals are definitely in style here (and Infinity Girl guitarist Nolan Eley’ s fluent, shimmery-yet-angular style fits the bill), and also shoo-be-do beats, coy singing, a tiny bit of spacing out, and a whole lot of romanticism. Playful and sometimes intentionally messy (check out that cool chord on the Eggs/Unrest-ish “Your Eyes”), Winter are stylized enough but ready to surprise you. With flanged bass and treated snare, “Nothing” sounds like an underground college-radio ballad from 1982. Something that would have shattered you then, and way way cooler than anything like bands such as Wavves or Beach House is doing. Their Bandcamp also has a sweet Pink Floyd cover (“Time”).
Take a trip on the video of one of the more straight-ahead tunes on the Daydreaming EP, “Bedroom Philosophies,” in which Winter get really, really hi-fi and glossy with nice equipment, and yet manage to still look like they are having fun and getting away with something.
At the other end of the vibe-spectrum–but similarly twangy and instigating some wholly other kind of fun–are Z*L. Also Boston-based, the members of Z*L fish out of the midnight swamps that are vacated when bands like Winter turn out the lights and zonk out on dream-pop sedation. 
The trio of Ian Adams (guitar, vocals), Isabel Riley (bass, vocals) and Jack “Knife” Guilderson (drums) are vets of the rock scene peeled out of bands like Vera-Go-Go, The Ghost Of Tony Gold, and Rock City Crimewave.
There self-titled debut (still as fresh as gas station Wonder Bread) is jammed with crunchy, swirling beer spillers–like my personally favorite “Black Luck” which shimmies with a little bit of Goo-esque cool. The trio work well mixing a variety of styles under their mood umbrella. “Mermaid Knife” brings out their rootsier, Nashville on broken-glass, side. But harmonies and hooks notwithstanding, expect a Z*L show to be much louder and more aggressive than anything yet described here. Tracks like “Leave Me Love” definitely charges with a whiff of the Stooges, and whatever intersection of ’90s grunge that did not secretly have their eyes on being a pop band.
While Winter currently don’t have any shows on the books (let’s hope for something this Fall), Z*L play June 15th at Radio (Union Sq, Somerville) as part of Midriff Records night w/ Eldridge Rodriguez, M.G. Lederman, and Sarah Borges. Get messy.
boston nova 