Dreamend is the long-time solo musical project of Ryan Graveface, (Casket Girls, Marshmallow Ghosts, etc) based in Savannah, GA. Dreamend is a constantly evolving project in members and sound, throughout the years it has bounced from post-rock, to shoegaze, to dark dreamy-pop, with folk elements but is always difficult to categorize as just one sound. This untitled LP will be the first released in six years and is the most uniquely experimental album the project has ever created.
This is not a concept album as past Dreamend releases have been; in his own words, "It's merely a massive life transition in album form." Since his last release, 2012's And the Tears Washed Me, Wave After Cowardly Wave, Graveface has been diagnosed with a rare condition that is slowly seizing his hearing, day by day. Certain tones and frequencies he once could hear are now missing thus altering how he composes music. As an artist who writes, records, and extensively pre-mixes all of his own material, this has had a drastic impact on his life and creative output lending to the experimental nature of the record.
The songs on this record came together rather interestingly, and certainly unconventionally. Graveface explains that the ten songs on this album were each written around a simple loop. "Sometimes the loops are not in time thus throwing writing a song on top of it out whack. The end result is oddly experimental for me not being an experimental artist." Additionally, he incorporated a technique in which the songs are incomplete in a traditional composition sense however each song has just enough notes to trick the ear into thinking it’s a complete song. The listener is responsible for filling in the gaps without being aware of it; this creates a unique experience for each listener, as we each fill these spaces differently based on our individual senses and various musical backgrounds.
The album features an eclectic mix of other artists Ryan works with on his record label (Graveface Records) including vocals from Alexandra Morte of Night School and Phaedra & Elsa from The Casket Girls. TW Walsh (Pedro the Lion) provided percussion. It was mixed by Darren Jackson (Kid Dakota) and mastered by Collin Jordan at The Boiler Room in Chicago. The album will be released on his own label April 6 with a national support tour this spring.
"Graveface is a whizz with the widescreen dreampop" - Drowned in Sound
"recalls Leonard Cohen’s ingenuous ability to paint every image essential to a story in vivid, cinematic color" - Tiny Mix Tapes
"Dreamend explored the luminous space between dreams and waking, bright pastel pop alternating with darker meditations on loneliness and mortality." - PopMatters
"waltzes into the realm of shoegaze, dream-pop, and other ethereal-based sub-genres" - Prefix
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