Laveda

Fall into the heavenly muse of Laveda by way of the eerily beautiful track Better Now and you might feel like you are sleep walking. The bent sounds feel trance like bathed in a reverb wash that feels at once psychedelic and psychic. Post punk with touches of industrial sci-fi rock. Spacey indeed.

Laveda has grown out of the bedroom project of Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks based out of Albany, New York. - American Pancake

We’re still caught up in the wave of bliss that is Laveda’s shoegazey, dreamy pop on their last single Dream. Sleep., which we featured, here. But Albany duo Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks have cast a new interminable spell on us with its follow up single, Better Now. This is exactly the sort of chiffon spiraling dream pop and gauzy rocking shoegaze concoction that I can’t resist, being the devout fan I am of bands like Slowdive and Beach House. An atmospheric wall of guitar closes out the nostalgic track, leaving us deliriously breathless. Everything is better now that Laveda has swept us off our feet with their exceptional new song. Let’s hope that it won’t be another half a year before we hear from the budding pair again. Stream/download Better Now, here. - I Heart Moosiq

Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks make indie pop together in Upstate New York as Laveda. After “Dream. Sleep.” last spring they released their second single “Better Now,” which features aside from shoegaze-y guitars some quirky vocal processing. There is also a pop sensibility in their music that makes us very much look forward for Laveda’s upcoming nine-track album.

Laveda play Montreal tonight and have a few more dates in the Northeast:

8/19 – L’Escogriffe, Montreal QC
8/20 – Sun Tiki Studios, Portland ME
8/21 – Monkey House, Burlington VT
8/23 – Worthen Attic, Lowell MA
8/24 – Baby Gap, Philly PA
8/30 – Buddies, Albany NY - Glamglare

We are loving the contrast vocals on the new single Better Now by Laveda. The breathy female vocals by Ali Genevich set off perfectly the dark and sultry vocals of Jake Brooks. The song has a cinamatic feel as it takes on a futuristic perspective, one maybe 20 or 30 years from now. In a post-apocalyptic world, a person looses someone close to them and is reflecting back on what once was. - The Girls At The Rock Show

Tonight your dreams will become real when Allentown’s Nietzsche’s hosts a very fine bill of lo-fi indie featuring Albany’s Laveda, Coral Collapse, and Michael Heubusch. Straight out of the Capital Districts and directly into your subconscious, Laveda (Ali Genevich, Jake Brooks) is shoegazey fun with a bit of British New Wave and M83 and thus ideal for emotively swaying in place to the pulsing beats. Coral Collapse, who only look like substitute math teachers, will be opening the show with their evocative, angular, and soaring dream pop along with the debut performance of singer-songwriter and rabble rouser Michael Heubusch. Doors are at 8pm and cover is $5. - Buffablog

Duo Laveda is back with their new single Better Now, an amazing piece of music. I really like the innovative melodies which create a unique atmosphere within a few seconds. Moreover, the vocal performance is grandiose and knows to capture attention until the last second. Furthermore, the rhythms are as expected very powerful!

You can not deny that Laveda has made some really good music again, Better Now has all the elements of an impressive track, so make sure to stream it as soon as possible! - Lefuturewave

The walk towards the sun continues with ‘Better Now’ by LAVEDA. Following the enchanting shoegaze pop single ‘Dream Sleep’, the duo of Jake Brooks and Ali Genevich make it evergreen when traveling that dusty promise of life.

The Albany originating band, formed in Summer of 2017 and as their visions in music evolved, the understated angst and grinding concerns in personal curiosities, beam out of each single with care and affection.

See the dynamic duo next at l’Escogriffe Bar Spectacle in Montreal Canada on August 19th. - comeherefloyd

Elia Einhorn (Pitchfork Radio) premiered "Dream. Sleep." on Pitchfork Radio during Pitchfork's Midwinter Festival in Chicago. - Pitchfork Radio

Laveda describe their music as “rugged dream pop,” but though such a tag captures something of the spirit of the band, it also does a disservice to the polished sheen that also represents their sound. The Albany, New York duo of Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks have made a slick and energetic hit in ‘Dream. Sleep’, as if to prove this, a style like dream pop with the dials turned up, the rumbling guitar lines and punchy percussion joined by synth lines that wouldn’t be out of place in a catchy 80s favourite.

Despite this surface-level immediacy, the band say the song is about “being trapped somewhere you feel like you don’t belong,” and mixes feelings of excitement and possibility with doubt and regret. That this is perhaps something of a contradiction fits in with the Laveda aesthetic, eschewing as it does any commitment to simple binaries and instead straddling both sides of the the divide. Raw and lustrous, fuzzy and crystalline, nostalgic and fully focused on the future, careering forward without second thought. - Various Small Flames

Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks were already writing music together in other bands before Laveda came to be. What was once a side project heavily motivated by excess creative energy one noteworthy summer has now become a point of interest through their latest moody pop release, “Dream. Sleep.” The young New York-based musicians gravitate towards high energy amongst a fuzzed out atmosphere, an experience listeners can easily grasp onto through the first single from Laveda’s unreleased debut album. - Kaltblut

Drenched in a dreamy haze, “Dream. Sleep.” is a supremely melodic effort from Laveda, a promising duo from Albany, NY. Their ’90s shoegaze influence prominent in the gorgeous textural pull of this track, where Ali Genevich’s sweeping vocals play with mysterious appeal over guitar tones that stretch from jangly understatements to shoegaze-y textural encompassing. Laveda – formed in summer 2017 by Genevich and Jake Brooks – initially touted a more singer/songwriter style in their initial days, though have expanded their sound into denser, more gripping heights over the years. “Dream. Sleep.” is a testament to that growth.

Look out for the duo’s first album release this Spring. - Obscure Sound

“Dream.Sleep.” is the formal debut single from the Albany, New York duo Laveda (Jake Brooks/Ali Genevich). With a jarring switch on, Laveda beckons you into their dreamscape with Genevich’s vocals shifting between otherworldly and pleading. The guitars do much of the same, running from gauzy to gritty, underpinned by a churning rhythm section before cutting you off with an off-beat cold ending reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Hazy Shade of Winter,” followed by the switch being turned off, bringing us back to earth. ‘DJ’s beware’ would be our PSA.

An older track, “Serity,” had a methodically layered Antlers-type fee and the leap in production on “Dream.Sleep.” echoes the difference between the hushed acoustic demo for last year’s “If Only,” subsequently blown up into a deep house excursion by ConKi & Nexeri. Released on February 16th, “Dream.Sleep.” is an effective calling card for Laveda, leaving us wanting more. - The Owl Mag

Newyork shoegazers Laveda release their second single ‘Dream. Sleep.’ after their first release ‘If Only’ which featured collaborations with Nexeri and ConKi.

As mentioned previously, this band are highly influenced by 90’s shoegaze, forming on the edge of dream pop. With masses of glittering guitars and loops ‘Dream. Sleep.’ is a true contemporary dreamwave infusion with crunchy, imperfectly perfect Lofi. Laveda place the listener into an alternate reality that reaches heights only shooting stars, or time travelling dimensions can.

The structure for this song is crucial to Laveda as they explain, “The lyrics are describing the thoughts of someone who has a dream about being able to make a choice to leave our world and go to some alternate reality. The second pre-chorus is where the character sort-of starts to wake up and realises it’s not a dream, it’s real and they are in fact somewhere else. It’s about being trapped somewhere you feel like you don’t belong. I wanted to evoke feelings of intense excitement that later (in the end of second pre-chorus) change to regret and doubt”. - Born Music

‘Dream. Sleep.’ is the debut single from New York-based lo-fi/dream-gaze duo ‘Laveda‘. Released on the 17th February 2019, ‘Dream. Sleep.’ bounces into view shimmering gracefully on a repetitive line of guitar before we’re swept away on waves of sequenced percussion, those humming bass frequencies and the intoxicating swells of twinkling synth. Catchy hooks and uplifting chorus breaks keep things really interesting and those beautiful vocalisations are seriously infectious. Whats not to like? We will definitely be keeping our beady eyes on this band going forwards! - Primal Music

Brooklyn via Albany, New York’s Laveda, the creative combination of Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks, just released their newest single, “Dream. Sleep.,” and I love it.

It’s not at all the mellow, mid-tempo dream pop track I expected. “Dream. Sleep.” is driving and euphoric, all blurring neon lights outside the window of a car late at night. It’s young and bold and almost frantic in energy, the heart and soul of a teenager trapped in suburbia and dreaming of escape from the mundane. - Left Bank

Utterly amazing duo of Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks, makes up the project named LAVEDA. The Albany, NY dream-pop band brings other sensibilities to the calculation, as the lo-fi elements are dynamically enhanced by layers and layers of fluidity and remarkable sense for the palpable. Formed in 2017, this incantation of what music could be, defines itself int he synth works, which drive the ecstasies, both noun and pronoun. “The lyrics are describing the thoughts of someone who has a dream about being able to make a choice to leave our world and go to some alternate reality,” the duo explained. “Its about being trapped somewhere you feel like you don’t belong. I wanted to evoke feelings of intense excitement that later (in the end of the second pre-chorus) change to regret and doubt.” Thoughtful and exasperating in their perfection, the single ‘Dream. Sleep.’ gets you, where it has never been. - comeherefloyd

Founded by Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks, Albany’s duo Laveda sounds like your typical 90s dream pop band but high on ecstasy. Simultaneously lo-fi and euphoric, their latest track “Dream. Sleep.” is a melodic rocket directly propelled to a glittering cosmos. Uplifting at first, the massive song actually depicts a bittersweet tableau as it deals with the feeling of being trapped and not fitting in. In their own words:

"The lyrics are describing the thoughts of someone who has a dream about being able to make a choice to leave our world and go to some alternate reality. The second pre-chorus is where this character sort-of starts to wake up and realizes its not a dream, it’s real and they are in fact somewhere else. Its about being trapped somewhere you feel like you don’t belong. I wanted to evoke feelings of intense excitement that later (in the end of the second pre-chorus) change to regret and doubt."

The good news is that Laveda are about to release a full album, and this is not an alternate reality. In the meantime, dream, sleep and, of course, repeat. - High Clouds

The pent-up energy is palable but nothing could have prepared us for the dreampop vehicle that arrives weighed down with chiming chords and Molly Rankin like vocals. It has a thunderous undercarriage too, so this ain’t just some light and dainty indie pop confectionery. Laveda (Albany duo Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks) have teeth and as a result ‘Dream. Sleep.’ stands apart in a genre that has been seemingly static for decades. Impressive. KH - mp3Hugger

Dream. Sleep by Laveda starts with what sounds like a cassette player's play button being pushed. The clunky tactile sound gives way to a dreamy Lo-Fi Dreamy pop affair punctuated by a runaway beat, deliciously active bass line, double time guitar flourishes, droning synths and cooing female vox filtered through a hazy wash. The result is totally infectious and a total throwback to 80's new wave and 90's shoegaze tones. There is so much to pull you into the fray here, popping hooked filled synths and an industrial electronic jagged sound near the end that crescendos the song until it ends with that cassette player's switch being pushed again. The effect acts as a time machine or remembrance and I love it. I love the entire aesthetic here.

Laveda was founded in 2017 in Albany, New York and is Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks. There songs have morphed, taken shape from singer songwriter styles to the evocative sound they have now. Their Spotify debut "If Only", recently released under Soave Records of The Netherlands, was written by Laveda and morphed by artists Conki (Poland) & Nexeri (Russia) to create a Chill House/Dance track. Laveda has been focused on further developing their own style out of Brooklyn NY. They plan to release their first record in Spring of 2019.

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Robb Donker - American Pancake

“Dream. Sleep. ” Is the first single from Laveda's debut album to be released in the spring of 2019. The song sounds like you're riding a train leaving the city nostalgically remembering all of the good and bad memories you had from the house where you grew up.

This young American band consisting of Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks is stationed in Albany, NY. Since its founding in 2017, the style of the band has evolved from modest singer-songwriter music to an expansive dream pop and shoegaze-inspired experience. The noisy, hollow guitar intro sounds melancholic enough to be sampled in a Lil Peep song. Instead of being followed by a kick rap beat, the production pulls open on the basis of lively drums and promising vocals. They deliver shoegaze, more subtle than the classic 'wall of sound' of the Leuven Slow Crush, for example, while the dreaminess is more nostalgic and less naive than the equally idyllic Hatchie.

On the melodic level the vocals are not unnecessarily complicated and Genevich blends flawlessly with the instruments. The semi-intelligible performance, which is more common in the genre, appeals to the imagination. The lyrics describe a character who, swinging between dream and reality, makes the decision to leave our world, and thus ends up in a desolate place where she does not belong. Innocent curiosity flows halfway into regret and fear. At times almost gasping for breath, Genevich lays down a gripping vocal performance in which her dynamic emotion reflects the development told by the lyrics.

Finally, the outro proves that Laveda has mastered the tricks of both dream pop and shoegaze: a whiny sweet synth line is soon accompanied by rupturing feedback, which acts as omen for the abrupt end that awakens the listener from his haze. - Dansende Beren