All You Have to Do is Dreamend

Dreamend, the one-man musical outlet of Savannah’s Ryan Graveface (The Casket Girls, Marshmallow Ghosts, Black Moth Super Rainbow), releases its first album in six years on April 6th. Pressed and distributed via his own Graveface Records label, the album is untitled because, as Graveface puts it, it’s not a concept album as previous Dreamend releases have been. “It’s merely a massive life transition in album form.” To clarify, Graveface has been diagnosed with a rare condition that is slowly eroding his hearing, meaning that certain tones and frequencies he could once hear he now can’t, which clearly alters the way he composes and hears music. That’s got to be a terrifying prospect for a man who’s entire life revolves around music. Even with the tinnitus that’s crept into the background of my right ear over the years, I can’t begin to imagine…

But if that had a detrimental effect on the finished form of Dreamend, you wouldn’t know it. Fans of The Casket Girls (whose singing sisters Elsa and Phaedra guest on vocals, as does Alexandra Morte of Night School) will surely notice musical similarities here – Graveface definitely has a “style,” equally dark and shimmering, fragile and dissonant, spooky and pop-inflected, and always gorgeously melancholy. With TW Walsh providing powerful percussion, it’s a spellbinding swirl of muscular shoegaze/dreampop. Tour dates should be announced soon.