For those that do not know, Dreamend is the band of Graveface Records leader Ryan Graveface and this month they released their first new album in six years. The record, which is untitled, features drumming from TW Walsh, guest vocals from The Casket Girls and production from Kid Dakota. Today we have the premiere of a new song and video from the album, “A Year and A Day.” The song is a slow-burning dream-pop track while the accompanying visuals come from a much more “out-there” place. The album was released on April 6 through Graveface Records.
“It’s a bit weird I suppose,” Graveface explained about the clip. “It’s a bunch of footage of Chloe’s mom’s band in the ’80s, my Coney Island experience from three years ago and a car wash I went to two years ago. Sounds weird I know but I thought it worked.” The strange visuals do a have a complementary quality to the grinding, shoegaze-y track. The song begins simply, with a blipping electronic beat and angelic female vocals. Eventually it transitions into a more traditional song structure as the guitars, bass and drums enter the mix, with a banjo showing the band’s southern Savannah roots with an ascending riff.
While previous Dreamend albums, like 2012’s And the Tears Washed Me, Wave After Cowardly Wave. As Graveface describes the new project, “It’s merely a massive life transition in album form.” The record also follows the musician’s diagnosis of a medical condition that is slowly affecting his hearing. Certain notes and tones are inaudible to him whereas before he could hear them, which has had an effect on his creative process.
Interestingly, Graveface took a unique, experimental approach to creating the songs on the untitled album. He purposefully left the songs “incomplete” or missing elements but have just enough components to present as fully-fleshed songs. The idea behind this approach is that with the missing components, the listener’s ears and brain will automatically fill in the missing gaps with their own interpretation of what should be there. So, the intention is that the listening experience will be slightly different for each and every person that listens to this new record.
In a Facebook post on the day of the release, Graveface celebrated the new album and also made it clear that it very likely could be the last Dreamend release. With his hearing deteriorating and his label/storefront taking up more and more of his time, this could very well be the final opportunity to hear this influential Savannah, GA band.
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