SHOEGAZE band Keaper will complete the second last show of their ‘waking dream’ tour at the Mansfield Hotel on April 26. Travelling across Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia the tour is promoting their new album which was released at the beginning of March. Shoegaze is a subgenre of indie and alternative music containing ethereal dreamy vocals and swirling guitar effects. The Melbourne based group made up of vocalist and rhythm guitarist Ameya Ajay, bassist Julia Derwas, drummer Sam Wallace and lead guitarist Austin Del Rio, started in 2020. Sam, drummer and band manager, said they started writing the waking dream concept album in 2021 accompanied by a book. “Over COVID we spent three weeks staying at Julia’s farmhouse writing songs and one of them called ‘alone’ is the main single from the album,” Sam said. “Ameya our lyricist, was inspired after reading fantasy novels like Lord of The Rings. “The book we wrote is a fantasy tale which tells the story of a girl called Elder who becomes an intrepid explorer travelling through her dreamworld.” The twelve songs go across three chapters of the book, each representing a stage in the narrative. “The narrative is built around the hero’s journey which is a story telling method that has twelve different steps,” Sam said. Sam said Ameya is inspired by different maps and landscapes. “As we get to travel around, she gets more ideas, so I think it has been a really great part about touring,” he said. “We’ve played around a hundred shows over the past three years and have completed several regional shows, however this will be our first time in Mansfield. “A lot of the towns on the tour are on the coast and then we also get to come to places like Beechworth and Mansfield which have lots of nice forestry. “I think one of the goals when we started the band was to travel as much as we could and play shows in new towns, meeting locals, having a beer at the pub and exploring.” Keaper’s Mansfield show will begin at 9pm on Friday April 26 at the Mansfield Hotel. Entry is free.
