I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier but here I made a Spotify collaboration list! The only rules are 1) don’t remove somebody else’s song and 2) don’t spam-add songs.
Really didn’t know how to word this. All I know is that I’ve been completely in love with The Shelter of My Love by Astropol. I’m looking for some more alternative, dream-like, cinematic, emotionally intense songs. Songs that make you have flashbacks of things you never experienced. Songs that make you lose yourself before the voice of the artist jolts you awake. Songs that sound like how perpetual fogs and inevitable spirals feel.
I’m not sure what to call this specific genre, either. What the hell is shoegaze, anyway?
Caring is Creepy by The Shins
Air is an excellent band that seems to fit your bill and if you don’t mind a darker dream there’s always the OG of shoegaze Portishead.
I have strong music association with memories so most of my feelie invoking music is pretty fucking random (like associating wanderlust with Beck’s Guero).
You might dig No Joy, Lush, Cindy Lee, the Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine
What the hell is shoegaze, anyway?
Ask four different people and you’ll get four different answers, but the term first started to get thrown at bands as an insult around the late 80s in the UK because guitarists in certain alternative bands would be using so many different effects during their performances they’d spend the whole show staring at their pedalboards (I think a review of a My Bloody Valentine show in particular is where the term got coined)
100% shoegaze fits the bill perfectly for OPs request. i’d add slowdive to that list
there’s some great, highly independent shoegaze on yt
also, some Dandy Warhols & Brian Jonestown probably fits the bill, eg. this track
Some type of skin by AURORA.
Not totally sure it fits your description, but it’s hella intense and I love it.
“Reckoner” - Radiohead
“Walking in My Shoes” - Depeche Mode
“Bloodbuzz Ohio” - The National
“Black” - Pearl Jam
“Glory Box” - Portishead
“Unfinished Sympathy” - Massive Attack