11.05.2015 — “Persephone” by Dowse

Dowse — Dream Songs

If you only listen to one song tonight, make it “Persephone” by Dowse (2014, from the Dream Songs EP).

Dowse is a dream-pop band from Los Angeles. I know very little about them, and I only found out about them earlier today because a different one of their songs showed up in my Soundcloud feed as a “related track” to something else that I was working on.

I can’t be sure about when this band formed, but I think it was in 2012. As far as I know, they started off as a duo, and however many band members they have now, it’s still centered around the duo of Tasia Trevino and Kenny Carranza. I know that until a couple of weeks ago, they went by the name of Ghostporn. That’s a terrible name, and I’m glad they changed it. They’ve retroactively changed their name on the Soundcloud files, but the Bandcamp files including this one still have them listed as Ghostporn.

They don’t provide anything in the way of biographical information, but their Facebook page and their tumblr page both have a LOT of pictures of late 1970s David Bowie and a lot of other references to David Bowie and Brian Eno. They don’t sound anything like Bowie, but it’s something that you should know about this band. They like Bowie. A lot.

Here, Trevino sounds quite a bit like late 1980s Siouxie, and I’m sure that the band is influenced by Siouxie & The Banshees.

I saw the song title “Persephone”, and since I already knew that they were a dream-pop band, I kind of hoped that it was a Cocteau Twins cover. It’s not, but it’s a good song anyway.

“Persephone” by Dowse”

The Dream Songs EP came out exactly a year ago via Lollipop records, and the only physical release was a limited run cassette. In fact, that’s the specialty of that label. Cassettes. I promise that I won’t go on another diatribe about cassettes. There are only a few of those cassettes left, but you can still buy a digital download via Bandcamp here.