bandcamp hunter

BCH Pick Of The Week

I was saying to some friends the other night (I don’t realise these things until it emerges through conversation) that I’ve been listening to a lot of psychedelic music lately and variations thereof. From guitar heavy drone like Sun Araw and Kill Kill Kill to more ambient sounds such as Black Eagle Child and newly discovered Soul Glimpse, it seems that I am currently desiring sounds that are hazy, noisy, complex and…off kilter. Noise and space and long, long songs. What prompts us to go through phases of listening to certain types of music? Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s the parasites. It hardly matters but I feel there is an element of searching to this experience, of exploring the terrain of a genre. We long for an exciting discovery. 

I’ve only just posted Dream Sick and haven’t even finished listening to the album but I’ve already decided it’s the best thing I’ve heard all week. In relation to my recent listening, they immediately reminded me of favourite local outfit Yolke (I highly recommend listening to the live set they did on Sydney’s FBI recently), though Dream Sick are more conventional, I suppose. Like Yolke, their recorded sound has a rawness and warmness (these words should not go together but I know not else how to explain it) that suggests a live dynamic only achieved by the musicians playing together, feeding off each other and producing a sound that is akin to a high quality bootleg. I’m all for this. Put the polish away. Let the vines grow. Give me grit and energy, not chrome and sterility.

Reading a bit about the genesis of this album gives some clues to the themes. Introspection. Sleeplessness. Reality crumbling in the cold dawn, the mind fractalizing after three weeks of graveyard shifts. For such bleak fuel, the music that has been drawn from this blue fire is surprisingly energetic, tinged with that ambiguous strain of psychedelica. Traditional structures are shattered, voices yelp, guitars burn, cymbals cascade, layers multiply, songs go on and on. Though not as long as I thought. Opener “Shine On Shine” seems like an epic but is only 4:09. To me, this suggests a transportive power to the music - intriguing enough to engage though disorientating enough to make one lose track of time.

And time is a dominant theme of this album : our time together, our time apart, the rapid disintegration of time and it’s slow corrosion. “Waste Time” is the most obvious example of this idea though it permeates the album. Most of these songs have a frenetic edge to them - as if an insomnia induced mania is closing in - but there are reflective moments. I love the pedal steel on “Long John”, a beautiful lament to an oncoming cold season that contains superb, yearning lyrics (“the winter comes then rushes out”). Frontman Jess Matsen is a busy lyricist, reminding me of Malkmus in his clever balancing of the cryptic with the clear eyed. I see he also has a solo album. Hmm.

There is a lot to take in on this album - lyrically, conceptually, sonically - and I admit I have only just begun listening to the thing. But it’s got me at the right place and time. Perhaps this rambling review is a good indication of the immediate impact Dream Sick have had on me. For all the psychedelic and shoegaze music I’ve been listening to of late, this lot have hit the bullseye. I’ve been shot through the heart. And isn’t that what we’re all after? In music or otherwise?