Dreamboat - Dreamboat (2016)

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.