Hong Kong dream pop and shoegaze band Lucid Express are going to re-release their out-of-circulation 2015 debut EP. The reissue will feature the original tracks, remastered and expanded, as well as remixes from their favourite artists. The first single, “Lime”, just got an epic makeover, courtesy of Young Heart Attack and IV Thieves‘s Elliott Frazier. Listen below.

Shoegazers Lucid Express are finalising the rollout of their self-titled debut album. The Hong Kong band have made a name for themselves by stirring up a traditionally inward-looking genre like shoegaze with unhindered discussions on political and social affairs. This is a band born out of political turmoil; formed in late 2014, they have seen and lived the state-sanctioned violence in Hong Kong for years. Following the release of the dream pop singles “Wellwave” and “Hollowers,” they are now putting out the last advance track off the record, “Hotel 65.”

“Hotel 65” is peculiar in that it’s the first truly introspective song we’ve heard from Lucid Express. Referencing the accommodation that they stayed in during their first UK tour in 2014, the track is a wide-eyed glance at an idealized, not-so-distant past. It’s textbook shoegaze stuff: the past is brought back through the simplicity of melody and lyrics but drowned in distorted walls of guitar noise. Whereas their previous singles allowed more breathing space for clear vocals and synth layering, “Hotel 65” is pure shoegaze in the style of My Bloody Valentine. From the crescendo teased at the 3-minute mark but never fully realised to the erupting guitars of the chorus, “Hotel 65” is a captivating listen and a must for all shoegaze fans.

Formed back in 2014 under the backdrop of civil unrest in their native Hong Kong, Lucid Express is the guise under which the five piece express themselves through airy indie pop and radiant shoegaze.

Finding their sound initially from the “need to hold on to something more beautiful than before. Like close friendships, the band, our creation” out of the chaos that was the Umbrella Movement, their stoic love of music and undeniable bond have led to their 10 track debut album out in July this year, mixed by Max Bloom of the band YUCK.

From the aforementioned album, and following on their debut single “Wellwave”, here comes the more ominous and foreboding single “Hollowers”. Awash with Kim’s hazy vocals, the track oscillates between a state of peacefulness and one of disturbance.

The verses showcase dreamy synths, hypnotic electronic drums and whirring guitars, coalescing to form swirling clouds of breezy sound. However, the crux of the track lies in the scuzzy choruses.

This divergence from the pure, cloud lined verses serves to wonderfully disorientate the listener. It’s fitting then, to learn that the track – like all of their music – was created between the hours of midnight and 4am, forged from that liminal space that the early hours possess.

Born out of a love, respect and concern for their home-city, “Hollowers” calls to mind a sleepy, fluorescent Hong Kong; skyscrapers lit up against the inky sky awash with stars, barely visible due to the light pollution from human activity. It also reflects the political discord that the band was formed against, with the varying tones.

What’s next for the band? A Brexit shoegaze track? If it’s as stirringly light and breezy as “Hollowers” then yes please.

Lucid Express formed as teenagers in the turbulent weeks just prior to the Umbrella Movement in 2014, the latest in a series of tense pro-democracy protests against increasingly brutal state suppression in Hong Kong. Amidst that violence, the band met in a rented practice space in the industrial Kwai Hing neighborhood to make something that lived outside of their reality. The result is the wondrous colorful world of their music. The band’s name is thus a kind of mission statement – the Lucid Express takes listeners on a journey through their world.

On “Wellwave,” the trip is rendered in glittering guitars, waves of synth fuzz, and playful drum fills. The band members are children of the early 2000s, and for me the track sounds like nostalgia for that era – the sonic equivalent of pre-HD home videos, the soundtrack to your first MySpace. The back half of the song is one endless, hypotonic dream of glittering noise, a montage of half forgotten memories saturated by VHS dust. The aesthetic is captured beautifully by the song’s accompanying music video, shot on Tai Mo Shan, the tallest mountain in Hong Kong. There’s also a real, defiant confidence in the song as vocalist Kim sings “We’ll wave today, for you, we’ll disobey for sure.” You can’t help but buy into that confidence, and imagine yourself trolling through downtown with your ipod Nano turned all the way up.

The end of the song kind of falls apart. The groove stumbling to a halt, feedback left buzzing out of the guitars. It’s the abrupt, sputtering reentry of reality when an old video fails to render, or the weird blurred moment at the end of a dream where you’re not sure if you’re waking up or falling asleep. It’s the sound left after you take out your headphones and find yourself back 20 years in the future, everything a bit too sharp and gray to touch.

Lucid Express will release their self-titled debut on July 16. Watch the “Wellwave” and support the band via Bandcamp below.