Night Dreamer Announce Debut EP + Share 'Another Life' Video

The LA based Night Dreamer is excited to announce the forthcoming release of their debut EP Treasure on October 11. Treasure is the outcome of years of purposeful exploration and world-building, the merging of two divergent voices into one unified vision. The duo first discovered their ineffable chemistry back in early 2017, when Southern California-based musician Mindy Song and TheSmashing Pumpkins guitarist Jeff Schroeder met up for an experimental session at his studio in Chicago. "I had no plan other than to just get together with Jeff and see where things might go," says Song, a classically trained violinist and pianist. "But then once we got going, it was an immediate explosion of sound and inspiration." Today the duo shares the EP's first single "Another Life." The track showcases the band's penchant for crafting elegantly collaged elements of dream-pop and noise and sometimes heavy metal. The band note, "'Another Life' was one of the first songs we wrote as Night Dreamer while we were still finding our sound. It was inspired by the destruction of Mother Nature, government monitoring, AI technology and this scary strange world we live in. Sometimes makes you want to be a part of another life..." The single premiered via Consequence Of Sound who say "Schroeder's guitar echoes under ominous bass and reporting drums, an almost unsettling alternative marriage. It's Song's vocals, carefully veering between airy and strained textures, that center the equilibrium as she sings,." Night Dreamer shot a video for the track -- directed by John Isberg it was shot at an abandoned Air Force base.

Tomorrow Night Dreamer are also sharing the instant grat track "Higher Than The Sky" which was partly sparked by Frank Herbert's Dune and its meditations on survival.

Night Dreamer have confirmed two shows supporting Peter Hook -- they will be playing at NYC's Brooklyn Steel on October 25 and at the Metro in Chicago on November 1.

Mainly recorded at The Cave Studio in L.A. with Josiah Mazzasch (The Jesus and Mary Chain, Built to Spill)Treasure is ethereal in texture yet charged with a frenetic energy. The EP embodies the delicate tension at the heart of Night Dreamer: a strangely potent contrast between Schroeder's volatile guitar work and Song's luminous vocals, giving way to a sensory experience all at once mesmeric and jarring and instantly transportive.

Treasure mines inspiration from sources as disparate as Gary Shteyngart's dystopian fiction and Miranda July's idiosyncratic study of human connection. Along with informing the EP's deeply varied thematic material those eclectic references reflect the depth of Night Dreamer's creative ambitions. "Mindy and I both have a larger artistic interest that influences a lot of our ideas, and will definitely play into how we integrate music and art and moving images down the road," notes Schroeder, who pursued a doctoral degree in comparative literature at UCLA prior to joining Smashing Pumpkins.

For Song and Schroeder, Night Dreamer marks the long-elusive fulfillment of certain musical aspirations. Growing up in Orange County, Song learned to play piano at age four and violin at eight, later picking up guitar, teaching herself to play drums, and immersing herself in music production. "For a long time I was in the orchestra environment, but once I found punk and post-punk, I realized I never wanted to be a concert violinist," she says. In addition to studying oil painting and creating video art, Song moved forward with her music and eventually joined L.A.-based indie-rock band Wam Dingis. "I worked with so many artists and producers through the years, but I never reached a point where I was totally happy with the sound I was making," she says. "There were so many roadblocks, but I still kept on writing."

Also originally from Orange County, Schroeder co-founded acclaimed alt-rock/shoegaze band The Lassie Foundation in the mid-'90s, then joined Smashing Pumpkins in 2007. Not long after meeting through mutual friends in 2015, the two musicians found a creative kinship that would soon guide their uncanny connection as collaborators. "In past situations, my role would be to come up with riffs or guitar parts and bring them to the band, and the singer would complete it from there," says Schroeder. "With Mindy we both have very different skill sets, but we're able to work together and create something new out of that. She's an amazing musician and has this voice where she can sing really pretty but also make it really gritty sometimes, and I love the way that sound melds with my guitar."

Watch the music video for "Another Life" here:

Photo credit: Kourtney Kyung Smith

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