MOVIELAND Then & Now. “Things got loud, bass amps exploded, speakers got kicked in

TWO weeks on from their ‘(A Sort Of) Icarus’ single, shoegaze supremos MOVIELAND are back with album, ‘Then & Now,’ – reissued on 604 Records as part of new archival series, ‘604 Decades,’ paying tribute to Vancouver’s overlooked artists from decades past.

“It’s a good time to do this,” said Movieland singer and guitarist, Alan D. Boyd, “People who were part of that scene will get a kick out of this again.”

Edmonton-raised Boyd played bass in Montreal garage rockers The Gruesomes, before settling in Vancouver in 1991 working at Benny’s Bagels alongside drummer Justin Leigh. Bonding over The Stone Roses, and Slowdive, the pair reached out to bassist John Ounpuu to start creating heart-swelling hypno-jams of their own.

“We were doing long songs, and they were noisy,” adds Boyd. “Things got loud, bass amps exploded, speakers got kicked in. There were a lot of drugs in Vancouver at that time. I never really liked weed, but everybody seemed to smoke it, and there was an interest in psychedelics amongst the people we were all friends with. It definitely informed what we were doing, that cannot be denied.”

Boyd eventually moved into ‘The Mansion,’ a crumbling rental in Vancouver’s upscale Shaughnessy neighbourhood that housed a mix of derelict musicians and artists.

“The neighbours called the police the day we moved in because they thought we were breaking in. We’d rehearse and throw massive parties, but nobody heard anything outside because the house was really well soundproofed. Playing a kind of angsty, self-referential music in the ‘90s – when next door the grunge scene is happening – felt very different, very exposed.”

But despite a small but dedicated fanbase, Movieland struggled to gain broader exposure. Ounpuu and Leigh left to form the pop-driven quartet Pluto, with the end of Movieland arriving in 1994.

“I stood on the Cambie Bridge and said, what a lovely place, but it doesn’t feel like I can get anything done here,” added Boyd, before selling his belongings and eventually settling in the UK.

CONNECT: 604Records HERE and Movieland HERE

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