Lately I’ve felt like talking a bit about music. Because beyond command lines and servers, that’s also what feeds me. And today, I want to take you on a little detour through two genres that aren’t necessarily well known to the general public but that, trust me, are well worth a listen: shoegaze and its darker cousin, blackgaze.

Shoegaze: a storm in the fog

Born in the late 80s in the UK, shoegaze is a style apart. You’ll find guitars drowned in effects, almost whispered vocals, and that feeling of being swept along in a fuzzy sonic flow, somewhere between daydream and diffuse melancholy.

Why such a weird name? Because the musicians spent more time staring at their effect pedals than interacting with the crowd. Hence “shoegaze” (literally “gazing at your shoes”).

What hooked me:

  • The sound textures: we’re not talking about super clear riffs or vocals pushed to the front here. Everything is blended, floating, almost ethereal.
  • The introspective side: it’s music you listen to alone, that resonates in some quiet corner of the brain.
  • It’s loud without being aggressive, and paradoxically, pretty soothing.

My personal recommendations:

  • My Bloody Valentine – Loveless: the pillar of the genre.
  • Slowdive – Souvlaki: dreamy and sad, a real journey.
  • LSD and the Search for God – EP: pure shoegaze, hazy and dreamy. Short but memorable.

Blackgaze: when shoegaze meets the darkness

If shoegaze is a foggy dream, blackgaze is that dream turning into a nightmare… but a beautiful nightmare. It’s an unlikely but powerful blend of shoegaze and black metal. Yes, you read that right.

And it speaks to me in particular, because I was a big black metal fan for years, that raw, cold, visceral style I used to listen to on loop during my most introspective phases. So naturally, when I discovered a genre that fuses the brutality of black metal with the dreamy atmosphere of shoegaze, I was hooked right away.

Picture sheets of atmospheric guitar, over which furious blast beats, screams from deep within the soul, and emotional surges of rare intensity come crashing in.

Popularized by bands like Alcest or Deafheaven, blackgaze has managed to create a world of its own: violent yet beautiful, chaotic yet controlled, heavy yet luminous.

What I love:

  • This constant duality between gentleness and rage.
  • The emotional surges that grab you by the throat.
  • The fact that it’s a genre that dares, that doesn’t resemble anything else.

Recommendations to dive in:

  • Alcest – Écailles de Lune: foundational, poetic, heartbreaking.
  • Liminal Dream – Untitled: indie blackgaze, not very well known, but ultra atmospheric. Long, hazy, intense.
  • Lantlôs – .neon: cold, urban blackgaze, both melancholic and raw. A pivotal record of the genre, between muffled rage and grey beauty.

Why these styles speak to me

I think what moves me about these genres is how they manage to express complex emotions in a raw yet elegant way. There are no overly explicit lyrics, no hammered message… but it’s all there. A muffled scream, a wave of reverb, a distant blast, and suddenly you understand without needing it explained.

And technically, it’s fascinating too: layers of guitars, delay, fuzz, structures that go off the beaten path, like messy code that’s still incredibly effective.

To finish: an invitation to listen

If you don’t know these styles, I really invite you to give them a try. It’s not always immediate, sometimes it takes several listens to grasp the beauty of the chaos or the blur… but once you’re in, you come out of it a little changed.

I’ll probably keep exploring this musical side in other articles, because just like tech, music is also a story of exploration and emotion.