{"product_id":"dreaming-in-the-non-dream","title":"Dreaming In The Non-Dream","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe idea that rock music ever pretended to promise ‘transcendence’ is ridiculous, or at least it seems so under present conditions. Leaving aside the obvious question even (‘transcendence’ of what?), the idea seems archaic, optimistic in a way that’s hard to access in the Trump \/ Brexit era. Chris Forsyth’s music is too kinetically aware, too intelligent, and frankly too goddamn punk to make any such outsized promises, but also nearly impossible to hear without considering the idea. Because as sure as \u003ci\u003eDreaming In The Non-Dream\u003c\/i\u003e is subject to all the dread pressures that have contorted us all of late —it would be a drab mistake to call this a “political record,” but also\u003cbr\u003estraight-up lazy to miss its subtle cues— it offers . . .one won’t say a “way out,” exactly (hardly), but something along the lines of a way through. It’s a record that conveys ecstasy as surely as Pharoah Sanders does, or the Velvet Underground did. In this respect, it’s hard to imagine who Forsyth’s contemporaries might be. But then it’s always been this way: the greats tend to feel a little out-of-plumb with their moment (only hindsight lets us see it otherwise), and Forsyth’s music has been sparring with some large forces from the beginning. He’s always united the homely with\u003cbr\u003ethe astral, the abstract with the visceral in his Solar Motels and Intensity Ghosts. There’s something different about \u003ci\u003eDreaming In The Non-Dream\u003c\/i\u003e, though. There’s a fresh economy involved here, a sense, strange as this is to say about a record with two songs longer than eleven minutes, of not a note wasted. Despite psychedelic leanings, Forsyth’s records have always trained toward concision — plenty of space, yet never slack— but these tunes erupt with startling swiftness, then spend the rest of their quick-burning lives teasing multiple moods and patterns out of\u003cbr\u003erelatively simple materials. \u003ci\u003eHistory and Science Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e pads in on the back of a slinky, almost shy, bass line, then —after a little blast of glassy percussion— hurls us about a mile into the air before arriving, startlingly, at a saxophone arrangement (!) that evokes early Roxy Music. The title track seems to gene-splice two of the great minimalist themes, Pere Ubu’s \u003ci\u003eHeart of Darkness\u003c\/i\u003e and Neu’s \u003ci\u003eHallogallo\u003c\/i\u003e, into one surging, winding, pulsing ride: Music For Speeding Tickets. Even the pensive, aqueous \u003ci\u003eTwo Minutes Love\u003c\/i\u003e, which sounds a bit like something Ry Cooder could’ve written for the Paris, Texas soundtrack troubled by ghosts both placid and deranged, does a lot —really,\u003cbr\u003ea lot— with barely more than a whisper. Those titles, though. It’s hard not to notice that \u003ci\u003eHistory and Science Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e might refer to the intersection we’re all standing at now, pinned by the consequences of the former and living, abruptly, within the latter; \u003ci\u003eTwo Minutes Love\u003c\/i\u003e inverts Orwell’s \u003ci\u003eTwo Minutes Hate\u003c\/i\u003e from 1984; as for the title track, well, that utilitarian “non-dream” could just as well be a euphemism for nightmare. But it’s \u003ci\u003eHave We Mistaken The Bottle For The Whiskey Inside?\u003c\/i\u003e that’s most explicit. Over a prowling, stabbing, Stones-ish backdrop —one that,\u003cbr\u003enaturally, will accelerate itself into something different— Forsyth sings about, well, transcendence: about “los(ing) my senses” and the suspension of self-judgment, about the gaps between ideation and execution, and, of course, between container and content. Perhaps the most canny thing about Forsyth’s music is how little explanation he’s willing to attach to it. Not out of coyness, or any need to gin up a little mystery: there just isn’t any need for it. When the whiskey’s this strong, who needs a bottle at all?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Quarter","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50496008847691,"sku":"1014783","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6e9031b6-8101-4d3f-a2c3-e0d0dd11eba6_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727716375","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/fr\/products\/dreaming-in-the-non-dream","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}