There's nothing quite like finding a new band that really hits the sweet spot with their sound. This is especially true with a genre that rarely ever does it right. Last week on Artists Condensed I wrote about one of my all-time favorite bands, the Cocteau Twins. Like any long-time fan of the Twins, I lamented the shaky history of the Shoegaze genre they essentially invented.

While I do believe that Shoegaze has been given short shrift by critics and listeners, I'm not so much of a super-fan that I can't admit the genre hasn't produced very many competent acts since the Cocteau Twins. I think Drive has always been overrated and that they never had a decent singer, The Chameleons were a bit too much on the pop-rock side of things and even my beloved Lush caved in when it came to the Brit Rock craze of the mid-1990's. Finding a modern Shoegaze band that shows balanced talent and a real sense of range is something of a challenge, but it's worthwhile to search. A Dream Pop fan cannot survive on Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine alone.

About a year ago a friend and fellow Shoegaze enthusiast gave me a homebrew compilation of so-called "Nu-Gaze". It had 14 different acts on it from all over the world. Only a few were interesting and most of them probably won't survive their horrible names (I'm looking at you, "LSD and the Search for God"). One band stood out among the rest, and I mean by miles. The band is The Daysleepers, a New York outfit formed by Jeff Kandefer.

The Daysleepers are really what a Shoegaze band ought to be. They know that applying echo and effects to guitars and keyboards isn't enough to make good music, a mistake that is maddeningly prevalent in the genre. What's more, Kandefer has a pretty voice that takes to washes of reverberation well. It bobs in and out of the guitars and rushes of percussion, not in mumbles but in a kind of soundwave-surfing complement.

It's been a year since The Daysleepers released their first full-length album, Drowned in a Sea of Sound. They have a tidy, little cult following them, though it would be hard for them to gather many more to them than that with their current approach. The Daysleepers are as truly independent as they come, not just "indie" in the modern sense of the ever more self-conscious scene. All of the band's releases have been self-produced and essentially self-distributed. They're a word-of-mouth act.

This brings up what I think is the most interesting development in popular music in over three decades. The Internet has reached a point of almost total cultural saturation and it's here to stay. The Web has given artists a new venue for worldwide exposure with no need for any middleman whatsoever. The Daysleepers are certainly good enough to grab the attention of a decent sized label and get themselves a contract. The question now is whether or not doing so would even be necessary. There are certainly enough Shoegaze fans in this world to show a band this good the direct support they deserve. Why lose money and creative control to a record company in that case?

Shoegaze may be permanently relegated to a cult genre, carrying its devoted fans through the decades with a scant few talented bands and scads of lesser contributers. Since it's no longer necessary to scower out-of-the-way record shops and beg friends for mix tapes, maybe it's not such a bad thing to be part of the cult anymore.