Chicago-based dream pop outfit Facing might be a relatively new project in itself, but there is much experience behind the trio. Multi-instrumentalist Nathan Whitman started off as the touring bassist for emo royalty The Appleseed Cast before adopting the moniker west/step, while Kirk Rawlings toured with a number of acts, founded art-rock duo Courtesy and later recorded solo as Beige On Beige. Searching for collaborators, the pair met via Craiglist and began sharing material, though quickly came to realise they needed a vocalist. Enter Claudia Ferme, who, having worked with Rawlings briefly in the past, responded to an online advert. Ideas were swapped, bonds made and sensibilities solidfied. Facing was born.
Landing at what the press release describes as “the intersection of ambition and approachability,” the Facing sound pushes dream pop to new ground, embracing the ethereal richness of the genre without ever being beholden to its more restrictive conventions. The result is often as ominous as it is alluring, crafting decidedly cinematic soundscapes which swirl and sweep and screw in strange directions.
As single ‘Undiu’ shows, a certain sense of dissonance is present too, the trio unafraid to add abrasive textures to an often pillowy style, and thus the sound expands the meaning of dream within dream pop. One not always as grand or romantic as the genre suggests, but rather closer to the lived experience of our nighttime wandering. Ambiguous, suggestive, opaque, and ultimately held together by a curious intuitive logic which exists somewhere off behind our conscious reasoning.