Covering this one is a bit of a departure for me as it's technically a single and I prefer to write about full albums because I feel like it gives me more context for the artist and their project as a whole. However, this one song is the length of a full LP and it gives me plenty of materials to work with. 夢のチャンネル or Channel of Dreams is a slushwave artist claiming to work out of Shibuya, Japan. They started posting to their Bandcamp back in 2018 and have kept up a steady flow of production since, releasing as many as six albums per year. Their earlier work like
私たちの計画された夢 (
Our Planned Dream) was pretty tightly composed and consisted of mostly low-key and reverby synth-funk with some playful samples mixed in. Even from these early releases through, 夢のチャンネル was exploring a theme of dream illustration- a subject which they return to with increasing abstraction over the years, finally reaching an ambient plane of hypnogogic homeostasis by the time they released 2020's
存在 (
Exist). It is a single track in which threads of angelic flutes, harps and electronic hums are woven into a blooming crown of cherry blossoms to rest upon your head. Dew dripping from their peddles and down your temples and brow, moistening your skin like tears of joy as they scurry down the sculpt of your happy visage. The progression of phases and motifs are so elegant and seamless that I find myself losing track of time while listening to "存在," as if I have entered a series of antechambers with vaulted and muralled ceilings and conveniently forgotten where the exit can be found. The way the song fills the space it has to work with is like the plumage of a songbird, stretching from the scapula to the metacarpus of its wing, forming a fan that enables it to take to the air. While the splendid mood it manages to convey reminds me of the sensational refinement of the interior of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Neither that exhibition hall nor this song are bad places to get lost in for a while and both are places that I often find myself wishing to return to and admire.
