Track by Track: Dreamtime

Brisbane quartet Dreamtime have played Austin Psych Fest and will soon tour Japan. Their self-titled 2011 LP has just been reissued with brand new cover art by Henry Bennett. Guitarist-vocalist ZAC ANDERSON takes us through its heady, mood-swinging depths.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

‘Bermuda’

This is one of the very first songs we wrote before we had a band name and was also the name of our band for a few weeks before we changed it to The Grey Matters, then later to Dreamtime. This song was there from the very beginning. The song is in two halves, first part surf/western influenced by ’60s garage psych, Link Wray and Dick Dale before dropping into a bad trip characterised by a heavy surf-doom style, a kind of cross between swamp and sludge genres with swirling psych guitar and distressed vocals. We weren’t into much heavy music back then, except for maybe Sabbath, Nirvana and Kyuss, but we wanted to play heavy and this is what came out. It’s actually influenced mainly by the Brisbane underground surf, grime and alternative heavy music scene like Del Toro, No Anchor, Keep On Dancin’s, Los Huevos and Slug Guts.

The first songwriting technique we learnt is from this song, cutting from one style of sound to a contrasting style of sound to swing from one extreme to another. We still do it; we love it. It’s an old technique from classical composers and it sounds like you’ve suddenly driven off a cliff. Lyrically ‘Bermuda’ is initially about a connection to the sea, from where we all crawled out of, then it drops into a paranoid psychotic play on Greek and Roman mythology about King Neptune and undead mermaids, kind of painting those beliefs in an evil light, much like the same way Catholicism and Christianity slandered other religions with stories of evil. It works because people like those stories, horror- and fear-based stories. We love stories too, and certainly dabble in the darker sides of things.

‘Slag’

The word slag means a few things at the same time: molten lava drooling down the side of a volcano; a disgusting expulsion of saliva; and an uncouth person whom another holds in upmost contempt. In this song we explore those meanings through drawling primal bass riffs, hot agitated guitar riffs and abstract lyrics implicit of sickness, fever, hallucinations, primal urges, no direction, apathy and underground social culture amongst the arts, all the while meandering in and out of sonic craters and dirges before a final eruption.

I love the sense of paranoia in this song. It’s eerie and suspicious. I don’t believe we are quite as paranoid today as we were when we wrote this, but a lot of people connect with that sensation I think. Some kind of sick addiction to sickness, bunch of sickos!

‘Gympie’

I have no idea why this song is called this – it’s some kind of complete disconnect between the song and its title. For anyone who doesn’t know, Gympie is a town couple hours north of Brisbane,that perhaps has a bit of a bogan country deadbeat reputation. I hate even saying that: people dissing other cities is just stupid, but for people that don’t know it, that is how a small-minded douchebag in Brisbane may describe it. But there’s also heaps of normal and interesting people from Gympie as well.

The only thing that connects the song to the town is the murderous and large amount of bushland near Gympie. The song has this 6/8 tribal rhythm and a nice bass line emphasising the minor notes. It has always reminded us of caves, bushland and running through nature at night with stars above. The song has legs and it runs with a sense of time running out, rushing towards something imperative yet clouded and strange. The lyrics are poetic and a little abstract, which we use to try and bypass the conscious mind and go straight to feeling and emotion to convey elements of darkness, light, truth, love and loss.

‘Robe’

‘Robe’ has some of the weirdest riffs in it, which I wish I played way more of. It’s really what people want to hear – your weird stuff that’s unique to you. I love this song for reminding me of this. The instrumentation and general vibe of the first half of this song is kind of inspired by Warpaint’s art-rock minimal sort of psych style, mainly the rhythm and the clean, delayed guitars and weird unique little bridges.

The lyrics are actually about respecting youth as opposed to youth respecting their parents, which is still a good idea, but youth are often so misunderstood and oppressed and suppressing themselves that they grow into unhappy adults repeating the same mistakes as their parents. Lyrically this song is to encourage youth, and the youth inside all of us, to be bold, let go of fear and release your true self to the world and inspire others. Get out of your convoluted headspace and break apart the rules of society. Stop making yourself small to make others feel large. Take off your robe, your veil, your mask and show us who you really are. That’s what we really want but are often too afraid, so this is a courage ballad.

The music and vocal tones are melancholic and introspective to tune into that feeling and to provoke a little self-analysis. Then the final section of the song is an upbeat blend of surf, metal and African blues riffs to excite celebrate the newly awakened!!! Haha.

‘Eve’

‘Eve’ is in three parts. Part one was actually inspired by some late-’60s Kraut bangers and ’70s Turkish psych-like groups like Bunalim. The bass line and the main guitar pattern reflect this influence and the whole vibe is a little bouncy, playful and dreamy – again, imagery of the forest at night was in mind when creating this song. It’s also actually the closest we’ve ever played to pop music. However, the lyrics separate it from pop music, as they tell an abstract and provocative exploration of Eve and Adam’s experience with her after she’s eaten the forbidden fruit and given it to Adam to eat who trips out on the mind-expanding experience and knowledge. It’s told from Adam’s perspective as he begins to lust over Eve but also associates her with the devil and experiences somewhat of a bad trip as they are banished from the Garden of Eden.

The lyrics end here as we enter part two and three, where the rest of the song becomes a soundtrack to a movie you can’t see; you have to imagine. Beginning with some percussive instruments and flutes representing a natural scene somewhere outside of Eden, the percussion and instrumentation builds into epiphanous harmonies, drops into a crevice of insanity before propping back up into a dance-paced forest jazz rhythm and continuing the wordless storytelling through a journey of build-ups and emotional climax. It is implied that if someone was listening to the lyrics, they may continue Adam and Eve’s journey away from the Garden of Eden in their mind as they find themselves in the real world tripping balls on knowledge and all aspects of humanity that had been kept from them. Or maybe listeners are just on a journey of their own. As long as you’re taken on a journey and experience a story of some kind. This was our intention.

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The reissue of ‘Dreamtime’ is out now on digital, 180g black vinyl and limited clear vinyl through Conquest of Noise. The new single ‘Serpent’s Tongue’ comes out this Friday (Aug 22). The band will launch the single and reissue this Saturday (Aug 23) with a free gig at The Bearded Lady in Brisbane with Dead China Doll and Lizzard Wizzard. Conquest of Noise will soon also reissue Dreamtime’s second album, 2012’s ‘Sun’.