Patterns - Waking Lines (2014)

Patterns, a psych/shoegaze quartet based in Manchester, are heart-warmingly ambitious – their aim is to make music comparable to the art of Dali and Buñuel. Apparently, to get the full hallucinatory effect, it's necessary to see them live, where their drones and loops are synched to visuals created on old VHS equipment. On its own, though, the music is still head-turning. Their debut album operates at the intersection of distortion, melody and dreampop, with My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Cocteau Twins the obvious influences. The big, synapse-tangling rush of Induction and Broken Trains's ethereal electronica are clearly derivative, but the original source material feels far enough away to make this album almost a new chapter in shoegaze. But the music engages the feelings as well as the head: Ciaran McAuley is a soul-searing vocalist, and when on form, as on the drugged-to-distraction Wrong Two Words, he's exactly the spectral choirboy the album needs to give a human face to all the glitchiness. For now: watch this woozy space.