Dream Talk

ロンドン拠点ドリーム/インディ・ポップ職人デュオ、夢の中で作った(!?)3年振り新作!

2007年ロンドンで結成以来、全作品がハイクオリティ、高評価という異次元な領域に踏み込んだデュオ スティル・コーナーズ。3年振りとなる新作『DREAM TALK』も麗しいドリーミー満載で輝いている!

タイトルの如く、テッサが夢の中で鳴っていた音や歌詞を書き留め、グレッグが機材を駆使しドンドン現実に誕生。そうして出来上がった本作は、夢の中にいるような桃源郷感とスタイリッシュな作風がマッチした意欲作。"The Dream"の心地良い疾走感とインディ・ポップの旨味を凝縮したメロディラインは最早職人技。映画のサウンドトラックな趣もある"Secret World"ではハンズクラップやマラカスも登場し、どこか異国風味なアレンジ。一貫しているのはどこを切り取っても、スティル・コーナーズ印のポップが組み込まれている事です。

曲と相性バッチリなアートワーク込みで、彼等のセンスが古びるどころか鋭角になっているのが分かる名作です!

It makes so much sense for Still Corners to write songs inspired by their dreams that its somewhat surprising it took them six albums to do it. Letting ideas and phrases ripped from the pages of Tessa Murrays dream journal guide the surreal serenity of Dream Talk may be an obvious choice, but the results never are. Where many dream pop acts blanket their songs in an otherworldly haze of distortion and feedback, Murray and Greg Hughes use space, clarity, and subtly odd production touches to create a more delicate kind of unreality. In much the same way that Murray morphs from a voyager to a voyeur on "Secret World," the abstract metallic shimmers that surround her lend the song a shifting, mirage-like strangeness. Some of Dream Talks strongest moments pair its elusive sonics with remarkably tight songwriting. The heartbroken synth pop of "Lose More Slowly" is one of several songs that continues Last Exits feeling of soundtracking a long, late-night drive to nowhere. Even when Still Corners dont depart radically from their past, its easy to appreciate their gift for creating haunting moods on "Faded Love"s ghostly AM pop or "Crystal Blue"s hyper-romantic tropical paradise. Murray and Hughes also perform a skilled balancing act with Dream Talks arrangements. Though "Today Is the Day" builds into a kaleidoscopic swirl of guitars and electronic textures, it never seems busy, and while "Turquoise Moon"s midnight surf ballad pares things down to little more than guitar and Murrays voice, it feels timeless, not unfinished. At times, the mood is so sustained that the album resembles one slowly evolving song. At its finest, though, Dream Talk is an alluring reminder of the power of visions and fantasies from a group thats mastered how to bring them to life. ~ Heather Phares