This week, we kick off our 2024 Year in Review series, reflecting on the year’s biggest surprises, letdowns and unveiling our annual “Best of the Year” lists.

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Anyone who actively wears their ‘pemerhati scene’ hat this year would notice this: More shoegaze bands have emerged in 2024 than ever before.

It’s the year when shoegaze — a genre born in the late ‘80s, once mocked for imitating the sound of a vacuum cleaner and has recently revived to bigger spotlight — not only steadily bloomed with new bands but also consistently put out new material that it’s getting harder to keep track of. While most new bands may struggle in their first year to define their sound or release material beyond SoundCloud demos, today’s Malaysian shoegaze bands actually materialise their brand before anything else. They waste no time putting out their first singles, EPs and albums, even on physical formats. They regularly release merchandise, setting up tables at gigs to sell cassette tapes and T-shirts that say ‘Shoegaze Ruined My Life.’ They also perform at gigs nearly every weekend, hit the road to tour across the country, open for international acts, perform in Singapore, share stages with Indonesian shoegazers, and, in the most unlikely yet expected place of all: a forest overlooking the Strait of Malacca.

While everywhere else is passing the glory days of their shoegaze baton to the next generation — a revival of the genre fueled by TikTok virality and the isolated period of the pandemic — Malaysia relates so little to a revival. Everywhere else is riding the highs of the shoegaze revival: the UK is enjoying the evolution of indie darlings Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine, now heading back on their first tour in seven years; the US is cultivating a new generation of shoegaze with Feeble Little Horse and Hotline TNT; South Korea’s shoegaze scene emerged with pioneers like Bulssazo, and has finally broken through to the international market with Parannoul; Japan and Indonesia released their first Shoegaze Compilation records a decade ago and are now hitting the stride in defining what Asian shoegaze means.

Here, we’re still standing on the periphery, trying to find our place in the shoegaze revival conversations.

Malaysian shoegaze — like much of our music history — may feel invisible not for lack of talent, but due to poor documentation. However, traces of its roots date back to in the 2008, when Klang Valley’s Witherspoon released their first single “Tingles & Everything” which later appeared in an Asian Shoegaze Compilation titled Half Dreaming released by Japan’s Quince Records — though the band themselves can relate more to ‘soundtrack rock’ label rather than shoegaze. In 2011, Kuching-based shoegazers Love/Comes put out a split EP with post-punk band Partimelovers. Youth Portal debuted in 2017, swapping shoegaze’s raw sonics for jangly dream pop. The Pale Ones released a self-titled EP in 2018, with their latest single “Charlie” released in 2023. This list, of course, is far from exhaustive.

You can’t credit today’s Malaysian shoegaze bands without crediting their godfather. Ask anyone who’s spent time exploring Bandcamp to discover local bands, and chances are they’ve stumbled upon Soft, a shoegaze band hailing from Ipoh. Formed in 2011, Soft’s sounds transcend between ethereal soundscape versus the soundtrack of a main character running fast down the corridor in a slasher film. Their debut A Warm Romanticism In Coldwave Room (2013) is goth and gritty, and pays homage to its influences like My Bloody Valentine. 

But Soft later released their second album Nostalgia (2017), where they evolved from just another Ipoh band to a cult classic. The album is mostly claustrophobic, fragile and elegant at once. On stage, the band is often shy and nervous, despite their music being loud enough to compress a room. It’s no surprise when shoegaze acts such as heavëner cite Soft as the reason they ventured into the genre. Yet, like many local bands crafting brilliant music, Soft remains underground — just influential enough to inspire the next wave of successors, even if it takes a decade to do so.

There’s also Islands that emerged in 2014, initially started as the electronic pop solo project of Izelan Shah, who cultivated a following on SoundCloud before transitioning into a full shoegaze band in 2015. “Playing shoegaze in Malaysia almost ten years ago made me feel like a kid sitting in the corner at a party,” Izelan shares over the phone. “It was a katak di bawah tempurung experience.” 

For Izelan, the Malaysian audience at the time wasn’t as receptive to shoegaze, with some dismissing it as “loud” and “difficult to market” to local listeners. Unlike Soft, who remained celebrated as underground heroes, Islands managed to reach a broader audience by appearing as finalist for 2018’s Vans Musician Wanted Asia and publications’ best-of lists, thanks in part to their dream pop sonics, which were at least more socially palatable. Their debut album, Changes, was released in 2022 after an arduous eight-year journey and was produced by Eff Hakim and Faliq Mohd, the former duo behind Pastel Lite.

This year, it feels like a restart button has been pushed.

Instead of a revival, we’re witnessing the parturition of a movement that might unfold bigger in the next few years. Bands like heavëner, the world ends with you., and Dasawarsa were formed in the last couple of years but are already distinctive enough to stand out as the brightest stars on the palette. Aktadiri was formed in 2020 as a solo pandemic project of Ku Azri, later transformed into a band and released Imaginasi EP earlier this year, with tracks fitting as background music in KAMI The Movie (2008) if the millennial indie wet dream were ever rebooted for zoomers. Feral has been prolific, putting out both an EP and an album within months. Their sound features daydream-inducing guitars that prioritise melody over reverb, loosely inspired by DIIV during their Oshin era. Others with 2024 releases: Aurumn, Dogtooth, Chrysanthemum, Whirlpool, Drown, Dreamscape, Voidsoul, Monstajohnx, Futura and Sonic End Trophy.

Why did 2024 become the year shoegaze gained momentum? Sure, TikTok can be credited as the catalyst that propelled international shoegaze bands into the limelight, but none of our local shoegaze bands have found similar success on the platform. (In fact, almost none of them actively promote their music there.) In a year dominated by Indonesian artists while second wave of indie is still taking up the stage, the rise of shoegaze in the scene raises an intriguing question. 

Perhaps the most unifying factor among the newer shoegaze bands is that most are composed of Gen-Z musicians. Just as international shoegaze found revival thanks to the same generation that uses words like “rizz” and “ick” in their daily vocabulary, Malaysia has found its new shoegaze heroes and fans born from this cohort. It feels almost natural to see why Gen-Z feel an affinity for shoegaze. Songs like Aktadiri’s “Cuaca” or Islands’ “Teenage Breakdown” seem tailor-made for the transition from adolescence to young adulthood, comforting their relentless existential questions. For the younger fans, the genre offers everything you need when you’re drowning in feelings: reverb-laden guitars, ear-pounding noise and vocals so buried you can barely make out the lyrics (yes, it’s intentional, but you can always read the lyrics later). The lyrics often range from poetic reflections on grief, young love and the inevitable pains of growing up. 

So it’s no coincidence that the same generation reviving the genre abroad is elevating it here in Malaysia. In a scene largely defined by millennials revisiting forgettable replicas of 2000s alternative rock, attempting to recreate the sounds of Bittersweet (or Hujan… or Butterfingers… who’s keeping track?) — shoegaze offers a sound that feels so uniquely fitting for Gen-Z.

The genre’s rise feels somewhat meteoric too. Faidil Kamaruddin, drummer of heavëner, launched his own DIY record label, Into The Frays, with the modest aim of releasing 10 records but ended up with 22, including heavëner’s As Suns and Love Retreat EP and responsible for other prominent 2024 shoegaze releases. Aktadiri is wrapping up the year with a performance at the #Tapau10Tahun show, sharing the stage with Masdo and Jemson. The year also started with Heavener telling me the struggle to find all-shoegaze gigs, often slotting themselves into hardcore or post-rock shows. Yet, they eventually performed at more shoegaze-only gigs for the rest of the year, including Termangu Sendiri, a gig in a forest, alongside Aktadiri, the world ends with you., Shanghai’s Pale Air, and Indonesia’s SunLotus.

There’s even a meme page dedicated to the new wave of Gen-Z bands, including shoegaze acts. While the page is seemingly another place for shitposting among friends, in this era of the internet, meme pages have become their own kind of love language for fans. Someone also created a “political compass” meme of Malaysian shoegaze, categorising bands into “Dreamy” “Washy” “Heavy” and “Noisy.” (If anything, shoegaze has spawned an abundance of meme and shitposting pages everywhere, perhaps solidifies the notion that Gen-Z is the driving force behind its revival.)

At non-shoegaze gigs, it’s now common to spot attendees wearing shoegaze merch. Bands like Pleasantrees and Smesta are weaving shoegaze influences into their music, while Feral — made up of members from hardcore acts like Eat Shit and Die, Kids on The Move and Non Pareil — have ventured into shoegaze to rest from harsh sonics of hardcore, embracing dreamy, melodic guitars instead. Shoegaze is growing so rapidly that if your friend decides to start a shoegaze band tomorrow, chances are they’re eager to join the movement before the zeitgeist fades.

With shoegaze bands in Malaysia progressing rapidly and carving out distinct identities this year, the question remains: how far can the genre go? Izelan sees the potential in shoegaze playing at bigger festivals and getting radio airplay but Iman of the world ends with you. is less optimistic. “Festival organisers here want bands that can pull the crowd, but I think shoegaze is still an acquired taste for people to appreciate,” he says. “Realistically, I’m not sure if shoegaze will play at big festivals anytime soon.”

Despite its upsurge, the genre’s players are not exempt from the scene’s outdated practices: pay-to-play gigs, playing for ‘exposure’ and an oversupply of small shows that audiences struggle to keep up with. “We talk a lot about shoegaze this year but it’s still tough for shoegaze bands to pull the crowd,” Hilman of Aktadiri says.

“I don’t think the audience is ready for all-shoegaze gigs to happen every other weekend.”

Add to that the familiar tension of younger bands carving out their space in a scene dominated by otais and elitists, and it’s clear that shoegaze in Malaysia, while thriving, still has the same-old hurdles to overcome.

It might be too soon to predict the future of shoegaze in Malaysia. Breaking into the mainstream seems unlikely given how hesitant most of us — fans, organisers, labels, gatekeepers, otais — to embrace new movements led by younger generation. For them, everything is either too much or not good enough to mirror the golden days. Perhaps, as the 2020s shoegaze revival intended, it might find niche virality on platforms like TikTok — most recently seen with Iraqi shoegaze sparking its own wave of memes. Perhaps shoegaze rise simply highlights that some of the most exciting moments in Malaysian music often unfold far from the spotlight. And maybe, like the fate of most niche genres here, it will remain firmly underground — big enough to be cherished by those who truly understand it.