Haiku Garden – Loose Garden / Tense Present CD (KAPA Records)

It’s easy to get lost among the new indie music releases nowadays. So many good albums pop up regularly, so you can miss some impressive bands by not paying attention on the right places. That’s the case with a record I would like to talk about today. It’s been a while since we had Slovenian bands on our pages, but things are about to change thanks to the recent material from Haiku Garden. I was aware of this band but never listened to their recordings. As far as I am informed, Loose Contact / Tense Present is their second full-length album, released by KAPA Records. Previously, they published an album named Where If Not Now and a couple of singles like Waver and Levitate. Still, Loose Contact / Tense Present delivers many innovations and might be their best work to date.

The first thing I noticed about Loose Contact / Tense Present is the vast amount of sonic ingredients lurking around. Haiku Garden fully stacked these compositions with several complementary music genres to achieve the desired sound, and they ultimately nailed their intentions. Perhaps shoegaze comes to mind first, but it would be such a shame not to mention some of the finest properties of grunge, alternative, noise rock, post-rock, indie rock, and dream pop roaming in the mix. They’re handling these combinations pretty well, and the entire Loose Contact / Tense Present appears like a harmonious material, thoroughly assembled to perfection. Maybe shoegaze and grunge shine the brightest in the mix, but you’ll unquestionably hear other elements while listening to these songs.

I adore how all the involved members shape a unique, calm, cathartic ambiance. However, this record possesses a decent amount of rawness, abrasiveness, and aggression that somehow pairs the polished, clean, high-pitched chord progressions, melodies, and harmonies. There are also particular tracks where the band drenched those melodies and harmonies into generous portions of fuzzy distortion. Maybe it might sound too much to some readers, but these sonic maneuvers perfectly suit the ambiance, no matter which waters Haiku Garden sails at the moment. Loose Contact / Tense Present carries something for everyone, mainly because you’ll stumble upon some heavy grunge, soothing shoegaze, and relaxing indie songs along the way. Head to KAPA Records for more information on ordering this gem.