<p><span><span>- The moody meetup of <strong>Amanda Roff </strong>and <strong>Tom Carlyon </strong>is back on for another full-length of strange and ethereal echoes of the ‘80s. Even as the dystopian visions become more warped and intense, <em>Life Of The Inhabitant</em>, in a disturbing way, is more solid, more real. It’s Time For Dreams and it’s that much harder to escape from them than before.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Amanda Roff (of <strong>Harmony</strong> and <strong>The Drones</strong>) has always indulged an unsettling fascination with the screen, in particular an intermingling of neo-noir, mingled with science fiction and the fantastical. Just ask her and she’ll rattle off a list of her favourite anti-heroes: from <em>Blade Runner</em>’s Rick Deckard, to <em>Angel Heart</em>’s Harry Angel, Eva Thornblad of <em>Jordskott </em>or <strong>Idris Elba</strong>’s eponymous <em>Luther</em>. In the little collection of vignettes that form <em>Life Of The Inhabitant</em> she’s taken the creative bit between her teeth, fashioning in loving detail, dingey dioramas, homes for lonely, troubled protagonists and other doomed characters. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Indeed, TFD describe the individual cuts on the record almost like they were writing prompts. From the ‘suburbs drenched in secrets, violence and occult practices’ evoked by <em>New Conflict Dreams </em>to the ‘frozen lakes’ that chill <em>A World Of Your Own</em> or the grim, looming feudal fortresses that tower over <em>Death To All Actors</em>.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Time For Dream’s first album, 2017’s <em>In Time</em> was, to me, more of a gothic pop affair, like <strong>Kate Bush</strong> at her most sepulchral. In fleshing out the alternate realities of <em>Life Of The Inhabitant</em>, Tom Carlyon (of <strong>The Devesatations </strong>and <strong>Standish/Carlyon</strong>) has taken a soundtrack turn, evoking treasured synth scores of the ‘80s by <strong>Vangelis</strong> and <strong>John Carpenter</strong>, but, perhaps most of all, <strong>Tangerine Dream</strong>’s classic work for films like <em>Thief </em>or <em>Near Dark</em>. Having said that, these shadowy, whispering electro soundscapes, accompanying Roff’s little-girl-lost voice are progeny that establish their own dark domains.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>There’s a lot of -cold, toxic, corpse-strewn- ground covered by this record - Time For Dreams have let their imaginations run wild, but there are some themes which snake, persistently through the entrails of <em>Life Of The Inhabitant</em>. Narrative drives everything along: there are many damned journeys of descent. Take for instance the journey to the <em>Thunderdome </em>of <em>Designing The New World</em> where Roff’s softly spoken recollection really sweats, shrieks and struggles with the crowd as she makes her way “<em>To the seat with the clearest view / Clouds of smoke you easily can see through / The coliseum heaving with plebeian fools / The slaves to love, the heroes wearing sequined gloves /The blood / The beasts without number.</em>” </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Other needling motifs are more primed for the times. There’s the mound of dead bodies, lifted from the pages history and deposited, ghoulishly on <em>Death To All Actors</em>. It recalls a medieval panic which saw troupes of travelling thespians murdered for fear they’d spread the plague; contemporarily you’ll note we just kill our artists through neglect. Another, perhaps more relatable, but no less eerie reaction pokes its head up more than once, but really comes into its own in the chanson stylings of <em>A World Of Your Own</em>. In the absence of actual human company, Amanda Roff fashions a friend out of nothing, hollowing a space in her own mind for a companion she lovingly regales: “<em>You don’t exist / You’re irresistible / The perfect companion that I’ll never know / You’re in a world of your own.</em>”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>If the walls of your existence are closing in about you, a cell that’s ever shrinking, there’s an escape of a sort by closing your eyes and stepping sideways with Amanda Roff and Tom Carlyon. The <em>Life Of The Inhabitant</em> is splayed across many planes of existence, some strange and alien, some uncomfortably close to our own. If your sleeping hours are as tortured as your waking ones, Time For Dreams are there with a haunting tune to accompany the experience and an invitation to worlds stranger still.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>- Chris Cobcroft.</span></span></p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2931082218/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="https://timefordreams.bandcamp.com/album/life-of-the-inhabitant">Life of the Inhabitant by time for dreams</a></iframe>