- Two and a half years have rolled by since the last -fondly remembered- Dreamtime record and y’know? In that time I can barely think of an occasion when I’ve heard a mention of them. They should be pretty hard to miss, being nearly the loudest purveyors of mind-bending psych that Brisbane can boast and, look at that, they have record deals sewn up in Australia, Europe and the US. For once there might actually be truth in the cliche, ‘the best band you’ve never heard of.’
If you did happen to catch their last record, the -in many ways- epic Strange Pleasures, you may recall the deeply conceptual record’s fantastic journey, soundtracking a non-existent, surreal science-fiction pic. Tidal Mind appears to be a sequel of sorts, rejoining Dreamtime at the end of their interstellar journey, just as they plunge from out of the sky and into the murky depths of an ocean planet. The rule is that the sequel’s never as good, right? I must admit, however, that these depths entranced me from the moment I heard the sonorous beginning of Emerald Sea and the lyrics “Nine times the deepest depths in the emerald seas / A city of light draws nearer / Turquoise windows blow wide open / Breathing the wavelength of blue.”
The line-up of the band has changed, with bassist Cat Maddin departing and Zong’s Michael Grinstead stepping in there, along with a new synthman in Ricky Turner. Despite that there’s a consistency of sound: Dreamtime still drink from the same font as 13th Floor Elevators and knock it back with a shot of spacerock. I think that’s as much a philosophical commitment as anything else. A passage from their bandcamp page captures it nicely: “Channelling distant echoes of krautrock masters into not only the sounds created but their approach towards recording spontaneous thoughts, feelings and jams; Kosmic music runs deeply in the veins of these five musicians.” So, you don’t mess with the groove, you just go deeper into it and the rewards are not just musical but psychological and spiritual too.
That may explain why, for all the eerie, intergalactic themes, the overwhelming feeling of Tidal Mind is one of positivity. I find that especially interesting because so much of today’s science fiction, even the mainstream stuff like Avengers, but more so when you get into uncanny, new-weird and horror subgenres revolves around a deep-seated fear that powerful galactic entities are coming to kill us. Just look at how influential HP Lovecraft and his subhuman fishmen the Deep Ones are. Fortunately, I reckon that Lovecraft’s paranoid fantasies would have little chance of penetrating the psychic armour of goodwill that Dreamtime exude like physical warmth, coming off their jams.
On a side note, without actually having been in the studio with the band, Dreamtime appear to have an interesting relationship with levels of spontaneity and control in the way they work. So many psych musicians pride themselves on unleashing the pure stream of their musical consciousness, just as it occurs to them and that’s certainly something that Zac and co. pay homage to. Beyond that though and almost like a countervailing force I get the impression there’s an enormous level of discipline and order in how they make these giant, cosmic tapestries. Whether that means, underneath it all, this band are some kind of obsessively neurotic, Heaven’s Gate-esque intergalactic doomsday cult, I don’t know, but if they are, then they have one of the more convincing screeds that I’ve heard.
Dreamtime’s small legion of true believers, spread across the planet, will, of course, join them on this new journey into the watery depths with no hesitation. Amongst the unconverted I’m still not sure how many people have heard of them, but those who do run across this record may well feel an unaturally strong compulsion to take the plunge.
- Chris Cobcroft.