Definition:

Best described as effects-laden indie-pop-rock which can be visceral, ethereal or both, and evokes a magical, otherworldly feeling. As I see it, the dreampop variant is ethereal and the (so-called) 'shoegaze' variant visceral. Often, the lines are blurred between the two, even within the same song, hence the reason for the Dreamgaze hybrid terminology, which also gives me the perfect opportunity to dismiss the rather disrespectful latter term.

The Jukebox Pick (of 1,235):

 Mogwai Fear Satan

 (Stuart Braithwaite, Dominic Aitchison, Martin Bulloch, John Cummings)

 Mogwai

  “Utterly perfect” Dreamgaze

 Right from their start in the mid-90s, an inescapable sense of magic existed within Mogwai's output, and this was never more emphatically realised than it was with “Mogwai Fear Satan”, the mesmerizing 16-minute epic which closed their excellent “Young Team” album in 1997. The piece runs the gamut of Mogwaism, with guitars that twinkle in the sunlight one minute, then fearlessly roar in the heart of the lion's den the next, scaring the bejeezus out of any would-be predator, vampire or any such-like perpetrators of evil. Bulloch's undulating percussion climbs, marches and rolls as the landscape demands; he's a master of his own space and a vital cog in the machine. Amidst the beautiful chaos, Shona Brown's calming flute could charm the snake out of a chicken basket. The whole is now the stuff of legend. Forget Ghostbusters, if ever there's an actual need for exorcising demons then one blast of “Mogwai Fear Satan” pumped through a 100K Marshall stack is all it's going to take to save mankind. “Lucifer Fears Mogwai” mair-like.

Some favourite artists:

Cocteau Twins, Mogwai, Spiritualized, My Bloody Valentine

The Jukebox pick: