Ruby Haunt - The Middle of Nowhere (2019)

Sadcore is apparently a musical genre that typifies music that creates a depressive feel via the usage of bleak melodies and clinging gaze melodies that never become energized. The genre is about as far removed from what you might expect to be featured in a blog that centres around the gamut of variations relating jangle-pop.

However, Ruby Haunt, whilst having displaying no allusions to being anything other than a fully fledged card carrying member of the sadcore society, does so with a barely concealed verve, that swirls all manner of jangled dream-pop riffs through the epicentre of it’s core aesthetic.

This Los Angeles based two piece, consisting of Wyatt Ininns and Victor Pakpour certainly know how to develop the aural soundscapes within their songs with Cobwebs, Answering Machine and the impeccable Breather (see below) displaying a somewhat unnerving ability to attach a musical picture to an initial isolated jangle-gaze riff and then creating subtle and multiple layers of sound upon this foundation of beauty.

I suppose many will dismiss such a sound for it’s uniformity. However, repeated listens, preferably in darkness, whilst adorning headphones, reveals multiple subtle nuances of beauty with every listen, to such an extent that a track such Nowhere can easily become embedded in the psyche as the most beautiful ear-worm you never want to recover from.