Ohhhh, that part right towards the end where it sounds like they bust out a set of tubular bells? Delightful. And, you know what? That sums up the whole song from Spanish indie rockers Yawners. Breezy yet catchy, it floats along so effortlessly that it feels like the perfect summer jam, even though it literally is titled “First of January;” so maybe it’s more that it exudes that kind of new-year optimism.
Fuzzy and playful twee shoegaze that’s as charming as it is unassuming. pond1000 certainly have the chops to bring the noise but they prefer to keep it just a bit more polite and approachable, which works extremely well as they balance brighter bits of instrumentation and musicality throughout. “daffodil” starts delightfully major-key until it lays on the minor-key dissonance and then it toggles between the two modes with a deftness usually lost on new bands. An excellent introduction and a band to keep an eye on.
Both tight and easy-going, gritty and laid-back, the music from Canadian psychedelic rock outfit Population II’s new record stands out. It’s ear-catching and jammy but also dead serious delivering on the sharper-edged sides of their psych rock sound. If you have time for another slice of delicious fuzz, keep the needle down and continue from “Mariano” to the following “La Trippance,” for an example of the range of both this band and the sounds they explore.
Norwegian producer Ora the Molecule put out an excellent little bedroom-dance-pop in 2021 and returns four years later with the same scrappy energy but with a significant upgrade in sounds and tools. The whole album, Dance Therapy, sounds rich and full and it’s stuffed to the brim with sticky melodies, pleasantly burbling synths and hi-fi drum loops. “Is This Love?” glides by in a sleek, disco haze, Ora’s disaffected vocals belying true curiosity and passion.
Feeling a bit nostalgic so, just in case I haven't personally made you just watch this with me, I'll digitally invite you to hit "play" on what is still my favorite music video of all time.1 Equal parts inscrutable, playful, lo-fi, pretentious, sincere, joyous and melancholic, it's a captivating watch from start to finish. I still don't know what any of it really "means;" elemental geometry, water, the feminine, music, performance: it's all there and it's also all not there, you know? It's kind of a visual ASMR, with so many visceral textures and repeated themes. There's little moments I love and always watch out for: the way the knife kind of hits one of the cones on accident, the second time we see the watering can, the smile in the shower.
And, yes, this is indeed a music video recommendation but it can’t be uncoupled from the incredible track from long-dormant electronic-pop outfit Adventure. It thrums along, sounding both modern and vintage, the synths overlapping delightfully as it reaches its extended jam of a bridge. The other highlight of this song, of course, is that every time I hear it, I think back to the music video…
1Ela Minus’s recent “COMBAT,” which I have written about before, might be a close second these days.
So that’s the narrative container for the game loop, which plays out very smoothly once you get in the rhythm of it. Design-wise, it’s very much a “just a little guy, running around" kind of game, like Hades, where you’re in roughly ¾ overhead view with fixed cameras exploring various “rooms” within each layer of your dream. That’s where the real meat of the game is, After selecting your loadout, (which, as you progress, can include things like specific or randomized weapons, magic abilities–called “lucid abilities”--armor, dodge attacks and various buffs you can gain through different means) each “run” starts with you choosing to make Cassidy flop down on her bed as you enter the first layer of the dreamscape. Each room is a randomized mix of either enemies, buffs or puzzles and the controls are extremely snappy with great attention to the various animations and feedback of each different attack. Even though the character models are relatively small (esp. if you’re on handheld), they’re extremely distinctive, making all the encounters, though relatively “samey” after a while, still fun and satisfying. As you progress through the rooms, destroyed crystals and enemies drop various tokens that can be spent in trading rooms you encounter as well as “outside the dream” (more on that soon). Combat is player directed and the different items and abilities that you eventually unlock (and can upgrade) allow for an extreme variety of playstyles–within the confines of the overall mechanics here of course. But especially as you chain together different buffs (like ones that add extra chains to lightning based attacks or additional projectiles) you can really have a lot of fun with the enemy encounters.
There are two styles of puzzle rooms you can encounter through each procedurally generated level. One is functionally Minesweeper on a 5x5 grid, The other is a version of the “flowing pipes” style games like the classic Pipe Mania I remember playing on school computers in the 90’s or the one in another childhood computer classic Shivers. Credit to the team behind Dreamscaper for making each version of the game exactly the amount of size/difficulty where they were always a fun one to two minute respite from combat and never overly time-consuming.
You can get bombs and keys to unlock hidden rooms with more buffs or specific battles challenges and then, after clearing the floor you can enter the boss arena–well, you don’t have to clear the whole floor, you can start the boss battle as soon as you find the room, but, like most roguelikes going back to at least my old standby, FTL, it behooves the player to clear every room possible to get as many upgrades as possible before progressing.
Mild spoiler (though it’s pretty easy to see at the start of each run); there are 6 overall levels, each with their own different take on the iterations listed above, but they’re mostly aesthetic differences along with slight variations on enemy abilities. Each boss fight is pretty distinct, though all share the trait of being able to tank an extraordinary amount of damage, even at the lowest difficulty level. One of the things that make them distinct, of course, is the variety of attack modes and various “tells” for each one. Like many a Souls-like, you can start to read the patterns of attacks and learn how to counter and prepare for each one. The other thing that makes each one different is the singular design of each one, representing various things that haunt Cassidy. Each a horrific, yet often slightly sympathetic, amalgam of monsters and inner demons. And here’s a good place to discuss the overall aesthetic, vibe and look of Dreamscaper because it really is a small wonder. It’s painterly, wistful and nostalgic without being whimsical and dreamlike in the best way. The dreamscapes, especially as you descend deeper, start to bend reality in a pleasing way.
If you die at any point along one of your runs you wake up, back in your apartment in the big city. Now, the game states that it features perma-death and this is what that means. Any progression you’ve made during your dream run is now lost; though of course, all the collectibles and resources you collected remain with you. And it’s those various dream resources that you can take into the real world and “spend” on upgrades that will allow you more skills and abilities to progress further. So, very much the typical action roguelike loop. That said, the real world segments are extremely chill and charming, with you moving Cassidy around various locales (book store, bar, park, coffee shop, etc.) to meet different NPCs and collect upgrades. Mechanically, Dreamscaper has you craft trinkets to give to the NPCs to befriend them and unlock conversations where you can learn more about Cassidy as well. Upgrades come in a couple flavors. You can upgrade the item drops and challenge rooms in the dream world, “daydream” new weapon/ability types and you can get buffs the more friendship you build with the NPCs.
Admittedly, the real-world segments can feel a little slow, and the conversations can drag on pretty long (and the plot around Cassidy’s past, I think, doesn’t wind up being all that compelling, really), but, generally, they provide a good respite from the combat runs and, I must repeat, the painterly, charming style goes a long way to smoothly over any minor frustrations.
Still and all, after upgrading a fair amount and unlocking quite a few fun abilities and weapons (my favorite build consisted of a space-hopping dodge, a set of killer yo-yos and an ability to summon a black hole) and making it to the deepest level of the dream and beating and its final boss, I realized that this will not be a game I’ll be returning back to very often. Simply put, as fun and charming as the game is (and the progression made in the first few hours is particularly rewarding), in its later levels and with more experience, the game doesn’t offer much in the way of strategy or continual problem solving. It’s not fair to compare any roguelike game to an absolute pinnacle of the genre, but I’m still playing a 10+ year old game in FTL because, even after unlocking all the items, each run offers enough challenge and strategy to keep me coming back, year-after-year. Dreamscaper mostly increases the challenge by upping enemy HP counts so they all just become bullet sponges. But when you’ve upgraded to the Nth degree and it still takes forever just wailing on enemies to clear a room it can start to get a little same-y. Yes, there are ways to increase the difficulty but those options, again, mostly just increase the amount of damage an enemy can take. Maybe straightforward combat roguelikes just generally can suffer from this problem but I found that once I’d made a full run (and the fact that, in getting there, I’d unlocked about 75% of the items and become good friends with most of the NPCs) I felt more-or-less like I’d “rolled credits” and am happy to fully put this game to bed.
~ Played on Switch, approx. 25hrs at time of writing ~
A catchy little piece of bedroom synthpop that I just can’t get out of my head. Newcomer Jane Baker makes a lot with a little and puts me in mind of early Maggie Rogers or a more minimalistic Poliça. Absolutely an artist to keep an eye on.
It’s already April?! Well, three months into this whirlwind of a year and there has already been a staggering amount of good music released into the world. I wanted to do a general round-up of the albums that have caught my attention so far this year. While the whole point of this blog is to point out things I like, this space is also going to serve as a general clearing house for albums I’ve been wanting to write about but haven’t quite gotten to it–the sheer forward momentum of my life coupled with the near-relentless drops of awesome new music has made it very slippery for me to keep my footing so lots of stuff has fallen through the cracks (both on this blog and in my personal life but that’s for another time and place to tell). So, below, in roughly release order, is a list and some thoughts about music I think is worth your time that’s come out since January. Generally, if I’ve already written about something, I’ll just post a link and move on, but I’ll reserve the right to delve into more detail about some of these later on :)
Oh, and I made a playlist with a single song from each of the records of this list as a bit of a thumbnail on the year. To make it a bit more worthwhile, I’ll exclude selecting tracks I’ve already recommended on the blog or put on the regular updating playlist. Listen along to my Quarter 1 highlights here.