Dreamcrusher

Last updated
Dreamcrusher
Origin Wichita, Kansas, U.S.
Genres
Years active2003-present
Labels
Website dreamcrusher.bandcamp.com

Luwayne Glass, better known as Dreamcrusher, is a Brooklyn-based noise musician from Wichita, Kansas. [1]

Contents

Dreamcrusher has been the subject of features in The Village Voice , Pitchfork , [2] and FADER ; [3] praised in SPIN [4] and VICE ; [5] and was featured in a mini-documentary for PBS Digital Studios' Sound Field. [6] Dreamcrusher's work has also been discussed in scholarly articles in the fields of musicology [7] and queer/affect theory. [8]

Early life and career

Glass, who is non-binary, [9] began making what they describe as "nihilist queer revolt musik" [2] as a teenager sharing tracks on Myspace. [3] After years of touring and over twenty independent releases, Glass moved to New York City in 2015. The same year, Fire Talk Records released Glass's Hackers All of Them Hackers under the Dreamcrusher name to broad acclaim: the release was included in Impose's Best Albums of 2015 [10] and SPIN's Best Avant Albums of 2015, [4] with VICE writing that the EP "could be the most important noise record of the year". [5]

In 2016 Dreamcrusher was included on the Adult Swim compilation NOISE alongside artists including Merzbow, clipping., Melt-Banana, Wolf Eyes, and Pharmakon. [11] They are also featured on hardcore punk band Show Me the Body's "collaborative mixtape" Corpus I, [12] as well as in a music video accompanying the 2017 release. [13]

Grudge2, released in 2018, further solidified Dreamcrusher's reputation as "one of New York’s finest noise mutants". [14] The EP's tracks include "Youth Problem," featuring vocals by Alice Glass of Crystal Castles.

Dreamcrusher released two full-length albums in the summer of 2020. May's Panopticon! was included in Bandcamp Acid Test's Best Albums of 2020, [15] Entropy's Top 10 Albums of 2020, [16] Post-Trash's Best of 2020, [17] and Mixmag 's Albums of the Year. [18] One month later, they released the full-length mixtape Another Country, which was included in Afropunk's 2020 in Review. [19]

In October 2020, PBS Digital Studios' Sound Field aired a mini-documentary on Dreamcrusher, titled "The Untold Story of Noise and Experimental Music". [6] Recorded in Brooklyn, New York during the pandemic, the episode features a socially-distanced interview and live performance at Saint Vitus.

Performance style

Dreamcrusher is known for a live performance style that is interactive, [20] high-engagement, [3] and multi-sensorial, [21] with FLOOD magazine describing their live show as "a full-on, full-body sensory experience". [22] They say in interviews that they prefer "an exchange with the audience" rather than providing an isolated "spectacle," "like eyeballs are on me, but there’s not an interest"; [3] they move through the crowd rather than performing onstage, and often serve as the source rather than object of a show's lighting, wearing a strobing headlamp that illuminates those in the audience.

Those praising Dreamcrusher's live performances often acknowledge that this combination––of high volume, unpredictable movement, and even flicker vertigo––can be jarring, [3] producing feelings of disorientation and vulnerability. [23] Scholars Shoshana Rosenberg and Hannah Reardon-Smith frame the means and aims of Dreamcrusher's "affective atmosphere" as "electronics and harsh vocals (often screamed into the face of their audiences) to explore queerness, experiences of violence, and feelings of societal and relational abjection", but write that the resulting "psychophysiological states" can be transformative, generating "an ethics of care, through mutuality, solidarity and empathy". [8] Similarly, David Farrow considers Dreamcrusher part of a music community in which explorations, performances, and even productions of pain can forge a "queer kinship" of "social connections that extend beyond performance". [7]

Discography

Albums

Release yearTitleLabelNotes
2013Incinerator [24] This Ain’t Heaven Recording Concern
2014SUICIDE DELUXEHausu Mountain / Fire Talk
2015Katatonia [2] Obsolete Units
2020Panopticon! PTP
2020Another CountryPTP

EPs

Release yearTitleLabelNotes
2009AntipopDionysian Tapes
2013CANAL de HOLOGRAMS [25] NoKore
2014HAINE [26] Lazed In You
2014Lemlæstelse / I'm All Broke UpSocialre
2015Split Cassette [27] This Ain’t Heavenwith Golden Living Room
2015Hackers All Of Them Hackers [28] Fire Talk
2016Quid Pro Quo [29] Fire Talk
2018Grudge2 [30] CORPUS
2020FICTION EPfeaturing Dis Fig

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Glass</span> Canadian singer and songwriter

Margaret Osborn, known professionally as Alice Glass, is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She is the co-founder and former frontwoman of the electronic band Crystal Castles. In 2014, she embarked on a solo career. She released her eponymous debut EP in 2017. Her solo debut album, Prey//IV, was released in February 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deafheaven</span> American black metal band

Deafheaven is an American post-metal band formed in 2010. Originally based in San Francisco, the group began as a two-piece with singer George Clarke and guitarist Kerry McCoy, who recorded and self-released a demo album together. Following its release, Deafheaven recruited three new members and began to tour. Before the end of 2010, the band signed to Deathwish Inc. and later released their debut album Roads to Judah, in April 2011. They popularized a unique style blending black metal, shoegaze, and post-rock, among other influences, later called "blackgaze" by reviewers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death Grips</span> American experimental hip-hop group

Death Grips is an American experimental hip hop group formed in 2010 in Sacramento, California. The group consists of producers Zach Hill (drums) and Andy Morin (keyboards), and vocalist Stefan Burnett, also known as MC Ride. Though he is not the group's frontman, Hill has been credited with being the driving creative force behind the project. Drawing from punk rock, electronic, noise, and industrial styles, the band's innovative and often difficult-to-categorize sound has earned critical acclaim and a cult following, while their aggressive performance style and cryptic interactions with their fans and the media have gained widespread notoriety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suuns</span> Canadian rock band

Suuns is a Canadian rock band from Montreal. It was formed in mid-2007 when vocalist and guitarist Ben Shemie and guitarist and bassist Joe Yarmush got together to make some beats which quickly evolved into a few songs. The duo was soon joined by drummer Liam O'Neill and bassist and keyboardist Max Henry to complete the original line-up. The band signed to Secretly Canadian in 2010. Since 2018, Suuns saw the departure of Henry as an official member to pursue a scholastic path, and in 2020 they officially signed with Joyful Noise Recordings with their 2020 output of Fiction EP followed by their LP The Witness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flatbush Zombies</span> American hip hop group

Flatbush Zombies is an American hip hop group from the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York City, formed in 2010. The group is composed of rappers Meechy Darko, Zombie Juice and Erick Arc Elliott, with Elliott also serving as their regular record producer. The trio are part of the East Coast hip hop supergroup Beast Coast, with fellow Brooklyn-based rap groups The Underachievers and Pro Era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darkside (band)</span> American electronica band

Darkside is an American band based in New York City. The band was formed in Providence, Rhode Island in 2011 by electronic musician Nicolás Jaar and multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington, both of whom were students at Brown University at the time. Their debut studio album, Psychic, was released in 2013 and was followed up by Spiral, released in 2021 after a hiatus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Haxan Cloak</span> Bobby Krlic, British musician

Bobby Krlic, known by his stage name The Haxan Cloak, is a British composer, artist, music producer and musician.

Pharmakon is the solo experimental music project of Margaret Chardiet, based out of New York City and formed in 2007. Pharmakon's live musical act has been described as confrontational and concise, attempting to "cross the boundary between performer and audience". Her songs are completely prearranged both live and in recordings, more focused on perfecting a sound rather than generating randomness in noise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eartheater (musician)</span> American singer-songwriter

Alexandra Drewchin, known professionally as Eartheater, is an American multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer and vocalist. Born in northeastern Pennsylvania, she is currently based in Queens and has been performing since 2009. Her music has been released on independent labels Hausu Mountain and PAN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guerilla Toss</span> American art rock band

Guerilla Toss is an American rock band, formed in Boston in 2012. Now based in New York City, the group currently consists of singer Kassie Carlson, drummer Peter Negroponte, guitarist Arian Shafiee, keyboardist Katie McShane, and bassist Zach Lewellyn. Guerilla Toss has released five studio albums, seven EPs, and three remix albums, on various underground labels, DFA Records and more recently on Sub Pop. They were listed in Rolling Stone magazine as one of the "10 Great Modern Punk Bands" and Henry Rollins has called them "one of the first great bands of the new century".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florist (band)</span> American indie folk band

Florist is an American indie folk band from Brooklyn, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kristina Esfandiari</span> American singer-songwriter

Kristina Esfandiari is an American singer-songwriter and producer who writes music and performs under the monikers Dalmatian, Miserable, and NGHTCRWLR, and with the bands King Woman and Sugar High.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cease and Desist (song)</span> 2018 single by Alice Glass

"Cease and Desist" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Alice Glass, released on 23 January 2018 through Loma Vista. The song was written by Glass, Jupiter Keyes and Luwayne Glass, and produced by Keyes and Dreamcrusher.

<i>NOISE</i> (compilation album) 2016 compilation album by Various artists

NOISE is a compilation album released by Adult Swim. It was curated by Laura Sterritt and incorporates a wide variety of styles within the genre of noise music.

Leikeli47 is an American rapper signed to RCA Records. In 2018, she released her second full-length album, Acrylic. She is known for concealing her face with a bandana or balaclava at all performances and professional appearances.

<i>Devour</i> (Pharmakon album) 2019 studio album by Pharmakon

Devour is the fourth studio album by musician Margaret Chardiet under her music project Pharmakon. It was released by Sacred Bones Records on August 30, 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacqueline Castel</span> American film director and screenwriter

Jacqueline Castel is an American-born French and Canadian film director, screenwriter, and curator based in New York City. Her debut feature film, My Animal, world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. Castel's work has screened at Sundance, South by Southwest, the Sitges Film Festival, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and she has written for and directed such established auteurs as John Carpenter and Jim Jarmusch, and has collaborated with David Lynch and Stella McCartney. She is the in-house director for the record label Sacred Bones Records, and has directed music videos for Zola Jesus, The Soft Moon, and Pharmakon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erika de Casier</span> Danish singer

Erika de Casier is a Portugal-born Danish singer, songwriter, and record producer. She began her career performing as half of the R&B duo Saint Cava. After the duo disbanded, she independently released her debut studio album, Essentials, in 2019. She signed to British record label 4AD in 2020 and released her second studio album, Sensational, in 2021.

Nappy Nina is an American rapper and producer. Raised in Oakland, she performed slam poetry as an emcee in her adolescence. She moved to Brooklyn, New York in 2012 and has released the albums Naptime, Extra Ordinary, The Tree Act, and Dumb Doubt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PTP (artist collective)</span> American artist collective

PTP, also known as Purple Tape Pedigree, is an American artist collective and independent record label based in New York City. PTP has been called "New York’s experimental incubator", and the collective has released recordings named among the best in new experimental, hip hop, metal, avant-garde, and electronic music. Pitchfork noted that "PTP's mission seems to be to annihilate genre boundaries and revel in the brilliant debris", and VICE has called PTP "home to some of the most boundary pushing music being made".

References

  1. ↑ Graves, Meredith (22 April 2016). "'I Want to Bring Together the Weirdos': An Interview With Dreamcrusher". The Village Voice. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 Torres, Eric (23 March 2015). "Queering the Pitch: An Evening with Dreamcrusher". Pitchfork. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Abdurraqib, Hanif (12 October 2017). "Dreamcrusher Finds Peace In Chaos". The Fader. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  4. 1 2 Joyce, Colin (9 December 2015). "20 Best Avant Albums of 2015". SPIN. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  5. 1 2 Hill, John (26 October 2015). "Dreamcrusher Has Arrived in a Fury of Noise with 'Hackers All of Them Hackers'". VICE. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  6. 1 2 "Noise and Experimental Music Is for EVERYONE". PBS Digital Studios. 21 October 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  7. 1 2 Farrow, David (22 July 2020). "Feeling Pain/Making Kin in the Brooklyn Noise Music Scene". Current Musicology. Columbia University Libraries. 106. doi:10.7916/cm.v106iSpring.6757 . Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  8. 1 2 Rosenberg, Shoshana; Reardon-Smith, Hannah (2020). "Of Body, of Emotion: A Toolkit for Transformative Sound Use". Tempo. Cambridge University Press. 74 (292): 64–73. doi:10.1017/S0040298219001190. S2CID   216434307 . Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  9. ↑ "Panelist USA: Luwayne Glass AKA Dreamcrusher". Goethe-Institut. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  10. ↑ "The Best Albums of 2015". Impose Magazine. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  11. ↑ Cush, Andy (20 December 2016). "Hear Adult Swim's New NOISE Compilation, Featuring Pharmakon, Arca, Prurient, and More". SPIN. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  12. ↑ Camp, Zoe (5 April 2017). "Show Me the Body: Corpus I". Pitchfork. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  13. ↑ Witmer, Phil (5 April 2017). "We Have No Clue What's Happening in Show Me the Body's "Hungry" Video, But We Can Assume It's Pretty Rad". VICE. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  14. ↑ Joyce, Colin (16 November 2018). "Stream of the Crop: 11 New Albums for Heavy Rotation". VICE. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  15. ↑ Bowe, Miles (11 December 2020). "The Acid Test's Best Albums of 2020". Bandcamp. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  16. ↑ "2020 WAS A YEAR". Entropy Magazine. 30 December 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  17. ↑ Wilikofsky, David (28 December 2020). "Post-Trash's Best of 2020 Staff Picks". Post-Trash. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  18. ↑ "The Best Albums of the Year 2020". Mixmag. 17 December 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  19. ↑ "2020 IN REVIEW: THE ALBUMS". Afropunk. 24 December 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  20. ↑ Davies, Jon (20 December 2019). "Interdependence, or how I learned to love again on the dancefloor". Fact Magazine. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  21. ↑ Mandel, Leah (23 July 2019). "On losing yourself in order to find yourself". The Creative Independent. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  22. ↑ Mandel, Leah (14 May 2019). "15 Noise and Experimental Artists You Should Really Know About". FLOOD Magazine. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  23. ↑ McDermott, Patrick (29 October 2015). "Watch Dreamcrusher's Disorienting "Fear (And No Feeling)" Video". THE FADER. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  24. ↑ "Dreamcrusher - Incinerator". Tiny Mix Tapes. 28 January 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  25. ↑ Masters, Marc. "Dreamcrusher: "Antagonist Part 1"". Pitchfork. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  26. ↑ Hill, John (15 August 2014). "Dreamcrusher Is a Queer, Black, Vegan Straight-Edge Noise Artist Who Is Never Changing". VICE. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  27. ↑ "GOLDEN LIVING ROOM / DREAMCRUSHER - SPLIT CASSETTE". Tiny Mix Tapes. 21 January 2015. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  28. ↑ "Brooklyn, NY digital hardcore musician Dreamcrusher shocks & awes all at once on 'HACKERS ALL OF THEM HACKERS'". Afropunk. 6 January 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  29. ↑ "Dreamcrusher Releases Quid Pro Quo EP". Impose Magazine. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  30. ↑ Rettig, James (15 November 2018). "Stream Dreamcrusher's Grudge2 EP". Stereogum. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.