“I had tapped into something new,” explains Tessa Murray of writing and recording the new Still Corners album Dream Talk. “And the way it came out was quite hypnotic, like a transitional state between wakefulness and sleep.” The resulting songs live up to the record’s title in more ways than one. Take for example lead single ‘The Dream’, which we described in a preview our preview as a song which “push[es] into the oneiric depths of this style, taking inspiration from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream to weave something rooted in narrative yet unrooted in waking reality.” The Anglo-American duo, Murray alongside Greg Hughes, have been making lush dream pop for over a decade, but never has it felt quite so intuitive and romantic.
Latest single ‘Crystal Blue’ is no exception. Painting a picture of lovers separated by the expanse of an ocean, the track offers longing as an expanse of its own. A wide space through which even the smallest whispers carry, illuminated by nothing but the mood. The song is as stripped back and patient as this might suggest, buoyed by the subtle backdrop of a tidal wash as Murray delivers her yearning with a plainspoken clarity.
The imagery has the subconscious poetic logic of a dream, a fact which is no accident. “The genesis for a lot of these songs came from dreams,” Murray explains. “Every night I would write down the dreams I could remember. While recording I would pull out my book of dreams and sing over various looped phrases Greg had been working on. The repetitive nature of the looping and singing almost felt like going into a trance [and] what I thought were sort of ramblings ended up surprising us with their various meanings.”
Do fishes sleep,
in the ocean blue?
Do you dream of me like I dream of you?
Dream Talk is out on the 5th April via Wrecking Light Records and you can pre-order it now.
Photo by Darcie Thompson