Dreaming With Eyes Open Wide

Through themes of complexity and simplicity, light and dark and a lens of dreaming, Heather Woods Broderick reflects on life’s innerworkings and brings the listener along for an ethereal journey on her newest album, Labyrinth. Her abstract and poetry-laden lyrics on top of airy instrumentals washed in reverb paint a colorful sonic landscape that teeters on the borders of reality, but is used sparingly so that the album is never predictable or stale.

In an interview with Brooklyn Vegan, Broderick explained that this album was heavily inspired by dreams that she has had. The idea of being caught in a dream is very prevalent across the album, residing in lyrics as well as instrumental elements. The idea of dreaming is introduced on the second track, “I Want to Go,” with the lyric “My mind’s been so alive at night in my dreams, so filled with curiosity and problem solving schemes.”

The lyrics themselves from that point onward continue to present themselves as more and more abstract and dream-like, like on “Wandering” where she sings “Who are all these people?” and “What are we even looking at?” while describing abstract images like “green and pink” and “We drank the tea in our slow groove toward infinity.” Broderick even admits that the dreaming she’s been doing has taken a toll on her in “Blood Run Through Me,” singing: “I’m tapped out, too much dreaming of another life. Blood run through me, I am emptied.”

Instrumentally, the choices made from track to track are polarizing, but the wide variety lends itself well to the complexity of the idea of a labyrinth. The instrumental elements also dip into another theme that presents itself across the album, being the balance between light and dark. Lyrically, the idea is presented several times with lyrics like “Sunlight still casts shadows through the trees” on the closing track “What Does Love Care.” These sentiments are best represented, however, through the ever-changing instrumentation from track to track. The best example of this can be found right at the start of the journey with the first two tracks.

The opener, “As I Left,” is an intimate introduction to the menagerie of sounds and ideas to come, utilizing only a pedal piano note, sparse chords, and breathy and close vocals. In direct opposition, the following track, “I Want to Go,” opens with fully distorted bass and melodic elements, so dark and distorted to the point where the instrument being used is almost indiscernible. Once the song reaches its chorus, the distorted elements are lost and the space opens up with bright and plucky string instruments layered on top of more breathy vocals and airy synths, bridging the gap between light and dark yet again.