Oakland’s Welcome Strawberry crafts music that blurs the line between shoegaze’s dreamy weight and the kaleidoscopic sprawl of psychedelic pop. The project, led by Cyrus VandenBerghe (Still Ruins), draws equally from the countercultural currents of the past six decades—psychedelia, trip-hop, electronica, C86 jangle, and Elephant 6-style experimental pop—while reshaping them into something vivid, unpredictable, and unmistakably their own.

Since their debut, the band has cultivated a reputation for balancing intimacy with expansiveness. Releases like Desperate Flower showcase lush dream-pop textures and homespun experimentation, while singles such as Stargel and its remix 12” highlight their willingness to push beyond genre conventions, enlisting forward-thinking collaborators from across the indie and electronic underground. Whether shimmering with melodic sweetness or spiraling into hypnotic, trance-like states, Welcome Strawberry’s music thrives on transformation.

More than a shoegaze band, Welcome Strawberry embody the restless spirit of experimentation that followed the genre’s initial explosion in the 1990s. By folding nostalgic touchpoints into forward-looking compositions, they’ve built a sound that feels both familiar and exploratory—a hazy yet radiant soundtrack for memory, movement, and reinvention.