Cincinnati’s Sungaze released Body in the Mirror, the second single from their forthcoming album, This Dream (self-releasing on August 13). This guitar-driven song has a dreamy and a spacious 60’s psychedelic sound with dreamgaze undertones.
Body in the Mirror is nicely produced, with a mix that fills the spectrum and width. The drums in Body in the Mirror are closely mic’d, panned in the drummer’s perspective. Layers of electric guitar are set in multiple depths of reverb.
Ivory Snow combines a number of vocal takes, placing them all close to the center, with a bright trailing reverb blending them together, and set down in the mix. Ian Hilvert joins her on harmonies, placed further back with a reverb that has a longer delay. There is an occasional synth pad that slips in to subtly fill space.
Who are you?
Sungaze – Body in the Mirror (BandCamp)
Who is this reflection
Staring back through the mirror?
It’s been a hard year
These two songs have better production than their 2019 full-length, Light in All of It. Produced by the husband and wife duo, mixed by Ian, and mastered by Adam Boose (At the Drive-In, Guided by Voices, The Avett Bothers) at his Cauliflower Audio Mastering in Cleveland.
Their new songs are fuller, more detailed, and develop faster. At times they lean toward shoegaze more than dream pop, with driving fuzzy guitars, while synths take a stronger role in others. The two singles they’ve released thus far, Body in the Mirror and Storm Chaser emphasize the layers of clean guitars with a compression, reverb, and (occasional) chorus pedals.
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