Shoegaze is having a moment.

It’s not the first moment for the cult-fave genre—a hypnotic amalgam of gossamer vocals and distorted guitars played, often loudly, through an army of nifty effects pedals. Not long after Shoegaze emerged from the British Isles in the late 1980s, its first wave crested on the backs of fuzzed-out bands like Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, and My Bloody Valentine.

But a shoegaze revival is definitely underway, fueled by young people discovering the genre’s giants and heretofore obscure bands like Duster, through TikTok clips and Spotify playlists. At the same time, a surge of new shoegaze-influenced (but boundary-stretching) bands have bubbled up, including They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, Wednesday, and Feeble Little Horse.

For fans, however, shoegaze’s moment never really went away.

“The reality is that there’s been a shoegaze scene in the Northwest that goes all the way back to the original days in the early 1990s,” said Ryan Carroll, vocalist and guitarist for the Portland-based band Ten Million Lights. “Obviously, it’s pretty exciting that more people are paying attention.”

Carroll is one of the organizers of Dreamgaze PDX, a new two-day festival that will bring 13 shoegaze—and shoegaze-ish—bands to the Fixin’ To on September 28-29. (The “ish” gives the event wiggle room to showcase dream-pop, psych-rock, and post-punk bands, too.)

“We’ve been talking about doing something like this with a bunch of the bands in Portland,” Carroll said. “I had a big birthday this year and my wife said, ‘Why don’t you do that thing you’ve been talking about? Get your friends and your favorite bands together and have a big party.’ And I was like, ‘Alright. I’m going to do this.’”

Inspired by the small but sturdy Seattle festivals Seagaze and Tremolo, Carroll went to work. First, he emailed about 15 bands he loves. When several of them expressed serious interest in playing, he realized he needed help to make his idea a reality. His first call was to his friends in the Portland band Kallai.

“There are bands out there that like to be asked to do stuff, and then there are a few bands that are hustlers—who are interested in actually doing the work it takes to make things happen. I immediately thought of Kallai because they’re the type of people who will pitch in,” he said. “This whole thing is a labor of love. We’re not doing it to make money; let’s be honest.”

Kallai did, in fact, jump into action, according to the band’s bassist Brian Wilcher.

“We’ve played with Ten Million Lights and I’ve known Ryan for years,” he said. “We got to talking about it and we were like, ‘Let’s do it—whatever we can do to help.’”

The group locked down the Fixin’ To as the venue, built a website, ramped up promotion, and secured some highly credible sponsors, including local companies like Catalinbread Effects, which makes guitar pedals, and Benson Amps—plus, the online shoegaze radio station DKFM. DJs from the station will spin records at Dreamgaze PDX, and Portland’s own Super-Electric Records will have a pop-up shop at the event.

“These are organizations that know what they’re doing and know the music, and they’ve decided to sign on to be a part of this,” Carroll said. “That’s pretty cool.”

And then there are the bands, which include Ten Million Lights and Kallai, as well as fellow Portlanders Waking Sophia, Tears Run Rings, and the Prids. Out-of-town acts playing Dreamgaze are coming in from Mexico City (Mint Field), Phoenix (Citrus Clouds), Brooklyn, NY (Dead Leaf Echo), Raleigh, NC (the Veldt), Sacramento (Soft Science), Oakland (Fawning), Seattle (somesurprises), and Olympia (Waves Crashing).

While those bands all share traits that might, say, get them invited to play a fledgling shoegaze festival—dreamlike vibes, floaty melodies, guitars that sparkle and fuzz—they each bring their own unique approach to the genre, Wilcher said. “I mean, I’ve heard some bands that sound identical to the old shoegaze bands of the ‘90s, but none of the bands we’ve invited fall into that category. They all have taken elements of it and created their own thing.”

More than anything, Carroll seems to be looking forward to just hanging out with like-minded folks for a couple of nights and developing a network of bands across the country who know and support each other.

“I hope we can build on our sense of community here in Portland, and also bring other people into it, too, not only from our area but beyond,” he said. “For this group to get together and get to know each other can only be a good thing. Wherever you do something like this, it spawns all these other shows in the future.”

Including, they hope, the second Dreamgaze PDX in 2025.

“The goal,” Wilcher said, “is definitely to keep this going and make it an annual thing.”

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Dreamgaze PDX takes place at the Fixin’ To, 8218 N Lombard, Sat Sept 28 & Sun Sept 29, $30 each day, schedule and tickets at dreamgazepdx.com