A really magical album, with masses of unhinged guitars and cascades of emotion Ido Schacham, IDC International Radio, combining immersive shoegaze with an explosive mass of distortions, dense layers of sound, and guitars on the verge of mechanical breakdown.

Michal Sapir wraps cotton candy with steel wool Michael Rorberger, Achbar Ha’ir

The Israeli band Afor Gashum is led by Michal Sapir, formerly songwriter, singer and bassist/guitarist in the band Baby Tooth (NYC) and the solo act Moon Pilot (London). After almost two decades living abroad, Michal has returned to her hometown of Tel Aviv to record a new album with Oded Shechter, Shai Lowenstein and Aviv Barak.

From the Inside is an album for the mobile, networked, liminal terrains of the 21st century. It develops a unique sound, combining the prickly precision of post-punk, the dreamy and disorienting soundscapes of shoegaze, and post-rock experiments with structures and dynamics. Based on melodic, heart-achingly hooky songs, it extends into abstract, gritty and emotional adventures in sound and texture.

Lyrically, the album deals with the state of being away, while also tracing a renewed encounter with the realities of life in Israel/Palestine. It talks about identity, territory and borders, and the things that subvert and defy them: aeroplanes, emails, political activism, idiosyncrasies. The album resides uneasily between belonging and dissenting, Hebrew and English, communication and difficulty, intimacy and distance; between a view from the outside and a feeling from the inside.

Click HERE to check out some tracks from the band.