Right, I want to actually open this one by saying: you’re not supposed to have this shit figured out, OK? Self-isolation, social distancing, quarantine, the new economic reality, what comes next; it’s hard to wrap our minds around the fact that this has been going on for only three months. For most of us, the change in life only hit a few weeks ago. You’re not supposed to have it figured out, you’re not supposed to understand this new reality yet, you’re not supposed to have figured out what to do. Most of us haven’t and I say that just because “all of us” seems pretentious. The world marches on and while it doesn’t actually exist in any meaningful way, our lives are still affected by it and right now, like the world, our life is in tumult.
Lord knows I haven’t figured it out; I have no idea what I’m doing. But what I do know is that an answer is starting to kind of appear out of the corner of all of this and, surprise, that answer is reaching out to other people. Dreadfully ironic, right? We’re not supposed to reach out to other people but, luckily, we have the Internet. And all I’ve figured out ever since this all started is that we don’t have to be alone. Sure, it’s not the same as hugging; what the fuck is as good as hugging? But it’s a simulation of that and it will have to do because it’s all we have right now. For now. And now can be a long time so we need to figure out how to do this better, how to reach out better.
Which brings me to our premiere today. It’s not “just” a premiere. A week or so ago, an idea called Post-poned started building in the heads of a few good friends of ours. It’s no secret that in the past few years, we have intertwined our fates with the post-rock community, both in America and elsewhere, and it’s no accident that this intertwining is now bearing fruit. The idea with Post-poned is to solidify those ties in the virtual and enable all of us, all of you, to still watch your favorite bands do the thing they’re best at: playing some amazing music. So, in conjunction with excellent people like Young Epoch PR (run by our very own David Zeidler), the majestic A Thousand Arms label, the illustrious wherepostrockdwells YouTube channel, and the magnificent dunk! Records, we are sponsoring and building Post-poned.
As our first collaboration, we are extremely proud to premiere a new track from It Was A Good Dream, a band we first talked about almost exactly a year ago on the blog. They make a kind of dreamy, melancholic, grandiose post-rock that is exactly what we all need right now. The new track we’re premiering today, “Descend / Suppress / Sustain”, is exactly that. Written for Piano Day 2020 (which is tomorrow, by the way) it features the beautiful instrument prominently as it builds towards the track’s sweeping crescendo. In both the quieter segments and in the controlled outburst that is the track’s outro (remember: restraint is the key to power, in post-rock as everywhere) It Was A Good Dream utilize the full toolkit of post-rock to create this moving track and its textures, evoking the “present while absent” feeling we’re all sinking in right now.
But that’s not all; as part of the Post-poned collaboration, Ronnie over on wherepostrockdwells will be premiering a second track from the band, alongside a video, also written for Piano Day 2020. This will happen in the afternoon, a few hours after this post goes live. Make sure to head on over to that channel to catch it and, while you’re there, do all that good stuff like subscribing because that channel is honestly a treasure.
Listen. We’re going to get through this together, alright? I literally have no idea what that means yet but I can promise you that we are. It’s OK to freak out. It’s OK to not know. It’s OK to mourn. But remember to also reach out to others because you know what? They need you and you need them more than ever right now.
I love you. Happy listening.