A band announcing itself from a city not usually tied to shoegaze already sets a certain scene, but elbowsway take that reality as their starting point rather than a slogan. Their debut single “common sense”, released on November 11 through the local label Boshqa Musiqa, arrives as a six-minute sweep of familiar melancholic haze carried by voices that grew out of a scene still finding its own shape.
The project traces back to bassist and vocalist Tomas Mollaev, who arrived in Tashkent from Turkmenistan in 2023 with no songwriting experience and a past rooted in extreme metal. He recalls a shift in 2018—“when Nothing released Dance on the Blacktop, I realized shoegaze was the genre I connected with most deeply.” That moment pushed him toward dreampop, emo, post-punk, and the surrounding branches that shaped the band’s palette.
Landing in a new city meant knowing no one, but a local Cruel Tie show changed that. The gig left him with an elbow injury and, unexpectedly, a band name. More importantly, it opened the door to the local community. Soon after, Tomas met Artur Khafizov and Aziz Ganiev of St. Waters. In 2024 he and Aziz began practicing together, both taking on vocal duties and building early versions of what would become “common sense” and the upcoming single “sleep debt”, set for release in January.
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Finding a drummer proved difficult, but the search eventually led to Roman Shirshov, whose presence brought actual live momentum. Guitarist Anton Suraev of Wyym added his experience on the early recordings; though personal reasons keep him from performing right now, he remains an official member. The current live lineup includes guitarist Amir Shaykhutdinov, completing the group’s two-guitar structure.
“Anton Suraev has played a huge role for our band. We sound the way we sound only thanks to his broad experience. He helped us shape our tone and provided the necessary technical knowledge that was required for the recording. And he personally oversaw the whole recording process. Right now, he’s assisting us with the mixing process, and provides valuable suggestions.”
Tashkent’s alternative and instrumental scene is still in its early phase, with younger audiences but limited spaces for experimentation. Shoegaze sits even further out on the edge. Tomas points toward bands like St. Waters, Bu Qala, Owl Cries, Cruel Tie, and Pustie Prilavki as examples of what’s pushing things forward, even as many groups lean toward tribute shows. Elbowsway want to widen the edges rather than bend toward the center—“our goal is to show the appeal of shoegaze and related genres, inspiring others to start their own projects.”
The limitations around them are concrete. Many venues are either unsuited to this type of sound or not willing to host it. Audiences are curious but cautious when faced with unfamiliar genres. The band doesn’t frame this as a complaint; they treat it as the landscape they’re working within. Making music here is more a matter of persistence than expectation. “A band like ours can only run on passion,” Tomas says, noting that each member balances full-time jobs with rehearsals and recording. The EP is planned for early 2026, built the same way their debut was—slowly, after hours, piece by piece.
“Common sense” carries some of that weight in its lyrics, working through themes of fracture, retreat, and stalled futures. Lines like “We’re killing common sense / We lost what we once had” land bluntly rather than dramatically, tracing a kind of social and personal erosion without overstating it. The second verse tightens the frame: “Our dreams of future / Have been shattered like a glass / They left us tortured / While we believed them in the past.” The repetition of falling, trying, and staying indoors paints a picture of exhaustion familiar to anyone who has watched their world shrink.
The track’s reception online has already drawn attention to the band’s position within their country’s musical history. Listeners on Bandcamp call the single “beautiful, emotional shoegaze” and note its uniqueness as a first for Uzbekistan. But elbowsway aren’t playing into that label. They’re simply one of the first groups to treat shoegaze as a living genre in Tashkent, not a borrowed aesthetic.
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Their story is closer to a quietly determined document of people shaping a sound where it hasn’t existed before, working without the infrastructure that usually cushions bands in larger scenes. The single stands as the opening statement of that process— local friendships, shaped by long commutes after work, and written by musicians trying to carve space for something that didn’t exist in their city until they built it themselves.
