dreamboat: s/t

Dreamboat is a collaboration between dream-folk singer and guitarist Ilyas Ahmed and the lunar-inclined analog-synthesizer-and-processed-bass-clarinet duo Golden Retriever (Matt Carlson and Jonathan Sielaff). The collaboration between these long-time friends began with a shared admiration for each other's work and a commonality in approach to making music, which one day begged the question, "What if our individual sound worlds intersected?" The result yielded a unifying love of exploded modal song forms, improvisation as composition (and vice versa), and a desire to interact with traditional song form. The record is a result of intense scrutiny of arrangement as well as a commitment to reckless abandon. Opener "Aftershock" introduces the trio's vocabulary with Ahmed's 12-string guitar and soft vocals floating through the billowing clouds of Carlson's synth wash as Sielaff's processed clarinet cuts through the haze like a knife. "Face to Face" ebbs and flows like the ocean's wash against the shore, with each instrument allowing the other plenty of space until the song's chorale-like outro. The B-side opens with "Mirrored Image," which straddles the line between abstraction and free-form chaos. Closer "Your Sunday Best" begins as a near-chamber-ensemble piece before segueing into the record's most overt pop gestures and playing out in a wash of modal hypnosis. Imagine Tim Buckley sitting in on the first Cluster recording session or Neil Young with The Taj Mahal Travellers as Crazy Horse covering Popol Vuh and you are almost there. Edition of 500.