The Dream Syndicate

The Dream Syndicate – Live Through the Past, Darkly (2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 12, 2024 · Comments off

Brand-new CD titled Live Through the Past, Darkly featuring all never-before released live audio spanning the band’s entire career from 1983 to 2023 including Karl Precoda, Paul Cutler, Jason Victor with Steve Wynn, Dennis Duck and Mark Walton. Plus, special guest Vicki Peterson of the Bangles on a searing 15-minute version of “John Coltrane Stereo Blues” from the band’s recent London appearance. Coupled with a DVD that includes a documentary features a documentary and previously unreleased one hour 1983 live concert.

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The Dream Syndicate – These Times (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · October 29, 2023 · Comments off

In 2017 with How Did I Find Myself Here?, Steve Wynn and his Dream Syndicate returned from a long break after the release of their last album Ghost Stories back in 1988. Spearheading the Paisley Underground scene, the Los Angeles group founded in 1981 mixed influences of the Velvet Underground and Neil Young. As if going back in time, one finds the Californian group as it was thirty years ago, still intact. The guitars are violent but not over-indulgent and the rhythms are perfectly hypnotic. In the spirit of How Did I Find Myself Here?, These Times unleashes all Dream Syndicate’s trademarks. Thrashing rock (The Way In), to sixties Byrds guitars (Bullet Holes), vintage keys and all the archetypal instrumentation that works perfectly with Wynn’s productions can all be found in this rather unexpected album. “When I was writing the songs for the new album I was pretty obsessed with Donuts by J Dilla. I loved the way that he approached record making as a DJ, a crate-digger, a music fan wanting to lay out all of his favorite music, twist and turn the results until he made them into his own. I was messing around with step sequencers, drum machines, loops — anything to take me out of my usual way of writing and try to feel as though I was working on a compilation rather than ‘more of the same.’ You might not automatically put the Dream Syndicate and J Dilla in the same sentence, but I hear that album when I hear our new one.” – Marc Zisman

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The Dream Syndicate – The Universe Inside (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · October 29, 2023 · Comments off

When one thinks of The Dream Syndicate, it’s not just the wild abandon with which singer/guitarist Steve Wynn, drummer Dennis Duck, bassist Mark Walton, and lead guitarist Jason Victor perform – it’s the carefully constructed songwriting of Wynn that comes to mind. By now every rock critic in the country has predetermined who he or she feels Wynn reminds them of and what they think of that style of songs. This time, don’t! Which brings us to The Universe Inside. Every article or review ever written will claim “this is new and different” – well, it is! Just look at the song lengths: 20:27, 7:36, 8:56, 9:55 and 10:53. Ok, sure – the Syndicate have occasionally committed a long song, “John Coltrane Stereo Blues” was 9 minutes with live versions over the ten-minute mark. For the first time, every song is a group songwriting effort. What seeps in are Dennis Duck’s knowledge of European avant-garde music, Jason Victor’s passion for 70s prog, Mark Walton’s experience in Southern-fried music collectives and Wynn’s love of vintage electric jazz. The dazzling display of album cover artwork alone should clue you into the changes. But don’t take our word for it. Dive in!

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The Dream Syndicate – How Did I Find Myself Here? (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · October 29, 2023 · Comments off

Amid an apparently-endless series of “returns with a vengeance”, this one in particular will please fans of American Indy rock of the 1980s. Steve Wynn has resuscitated his Dream Syndicate, whose last album to date, Ghost Stories, came out in 1988! At the cutting edge of the Paisley Underground scene, the group, founded in Los Angeles in 1981, brought together the influences of the Velvet Underground and Neil Young. They recorded three other albums: the indispensable The Days Of Wine And Roses in 1982,Medicine Show in 1984 and Out Of The Grey in 1986. They were reformed in 2012 for a series of concerts. Signed by the very fashionable ANTI label, Wynn’s gang returned to the studio for good, to put down How Did I Find Myself Here?.. The rhythm section is of its times (Dennis Duck on drums and Mark Walton on bass); the lead guitar is wielded by Jason Victor, Steve Wynn’s vigorous companion on several of his recent solo efforts. As if time itself had stopped, we find the Californian band’s DNA fully intact. The guitars are violent but not exuberant, and the rhythms are hypnotic: without a doubt, Wynn and his accomplices know how to set off powerful tsunamis of electricity and noise (Out Of My Head) and more nuanced tempests (80 West), with the same efficiency… Finally, How Did I Find Myself Here? comes across like vintage Dream Syndicate, but with a 100% 2017 sound. A sonic upgrade which will enrapture early fans and allow new ones an easy taste of this uncompromising and venomous rock’n’roll.

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