The intersection of jazz, post-rock, math rock, and other genres is one that we’ve certainly touched upon here on numerous occasions, in particular last year with two albums I especially loved – Monobody‘s self-titled album and Town Portal‘s The Occident. Both of those bands take a generally livelier route though, inserting either more complex mathy rhythms/compositions or crunchier bass tones and driving grooves. Sometimes you just want to pop on an album, let it fade into the background and allow yourself to be utterly absorbed in and by it. That is exactly what In-Dreamview is good for.
Blending beautiful jazz guitar sensibilities with light jazz drumming and plenty of more spacious and dreamy atmospherics and textures, In-Dreamview’s music is at once ethereal but still plenty substantive and interesting enough to hold your attention. In particular, their most recent full-length, Reverie, feels like an aural equivalent of a gorgeous and comfortable patchwork quilt. At times sounding like a far lighter version of Town Portal’s jazzier tracks, the more guitar-driven tracks like “Lunar Halo,” “Superposition,” and “Ecliptic” feature the same kind of winding and circular lead lines and melodies, looping itself in polyrhythmic ways that create a sense of complicated time signatures while ultimately remaining anchored within largely 4/4 and 3/4 meters. Even at its calmest and most serene, such as the piano-led tracks in the back half like “Eventide” and “Dawning,” there is more than enough beautiful and enticing sound filling up the space to keep you either actively engaged or utterly spaced out.
It’s this ability to create serene, dreamy textures that present the listener with the option to focus on it intently or simply allow it to play out in the background without losing any of its interest that really separates this band’s music from many other, similar post-y/jazzy instrumental groups. It’s a topic we intend to dig much deeper into soon, but the line between something that’s simply “nice” and something that is “good” is a crucial one that separates the leagues of bands content to create average music that is pleasant or nice enough to listen to from ones who manage to intrigue you enough to keep coming back. Post-y music that is so heavy on atmosphere often falls into the former category, but In-Dreamview and Reverie manage to break the mold by blending together a wonderful mosaic of rhythms, melodies, and moods. It’s well worth repeated listens regardless of whether you want to focus on it or not.
In-Dreamview’s two albums, Faction of Deer and Reverie are both available on their Bandcamp. You can find them on Facebook here.