Inbetween Dreams

ARTS inbetween dreams

THE DREAMCORE AESTHETIC TOLD THROUGH DREAM-POP, SHOEGAZE AND MORE

Writing and graphic by Arella Warren, Deputy Editor

Throughout the 2010s onward, “core” aesthetics have taken the internet by storm. Cottagecore, skatercore and softcore are some better-known examples that have been in the spotlight for several years now. While these aesthetics each have a distinct charm, a new core is gaining traction in the arts and music scene—it goes by the name of dreamcore.

The idea of an aesthetic today is used to convey the overall style of something, such as someone’s persona or “vibe,” how a person dresses or the way something looks or sounds.1 From this, “core” has entered our common vernacular as a suffix that gets attached to the end of a word to explain a particular aesthetic, similar to a wave, genre or movement in media.

Dreamcore’s aesthetic is closely linked with the larger category of weirdcore, a surrealist internet art movement. Both feature digitally-constructed, lo-fi images or sounds intended to evoke “feelings of confusion, disorientation, alienation and nostalgia” in their beholders.2 While weirdcore represents eerier feelings of yearning and discomfort, dreamcore tends to center on lighter, foggier, otherworldly visuals and beats connotative of the subconscious dreamscape.

Dreamcore media in specific aims to depict liminal sounds and spaces. The term “liminal” derives from the Latin word “limen,” meaning “threshold”—these liminal environments take the form of physical, visual or emotional in-betweens, representing a transitory point of being on the precipice of somewhere new, but lost in a plane of waiting.3 In images shared online, this is often shown through dreamlike spaces with no apparent end in sight, such as stairwells, hallways and pool rooms, or symbols reminiscent of endings, memories of childhood, outer space, uncertainty and nostalgic yearning.

Dreamcore is far from homogeneous, unbounded by typical musical tropes or genre restraints—dream-pop and shoegaze in particular have their roots in Black history.

In music, dreamcore is commonly embodied by dream-pop. The dream-pop genre grew out of the ‘80s, described as a “movement in alternative rock [that] combines guitar-driven pop hooks with lush atmospherics and psychedelic production.”4 Dream-pop artists merge elements of post-punk, such as heavier reverb and DIY structures, with indie rock5 to come together in forming an electronically distorted, psychedelic yet blissful ambiance.

¹ “Aesthetic,” Dictionary.com, LLC, July 1, 2019. ² Malavika Pradeep, “Inside Weirdcore, an internet-born art movement triggering nostalgia of the unknown,” Screenshot, Sept. 5, 2021. ³ “Theodora Blanchfield, “The Impact of Liminal Space on Your Mental Health,” Verywell Mind, Oct. 20, 2021. ⁴ The MasterClass Staff, “Dream Pop Music Guide: 9 Dream Pop Artists,” MasterClass, March 4, 2022. ⁵ Ibid. MODA | 46

“Dream-pop” also gets used interchangeably with “shoegaze.” Both genres implement “atmospheric soundscapes”6 that intend to engage and stimulate all the senses in an emotive experience that other styles of music can’t quite encapsulate.

The classic My Bloody Valentine has long lived at the intersection of dream-pop and shoegaze. Their 1991 genre-defying album, “Loveless,” offers a billowing distortion of music and sound that has inspired countless bands across the decades.7 The output is fuzzy and Avantgarde without the traditional lyrical structure many expect to find in pop music.

Kevin Shields, the lead singer and guitarist, views this amalgamation of nearly indiscernible vocals and textured white noise as an emotional experiment with the listener. Shields explains “A good song is something that transcends what you’re doing and actually goes past that, and affects people on a level that’s deeper than the superficial elements of the song,” which is a key aspiration for many musicians of the dream scene, including other notable shoegaze bands such as Galaxie 500 and Slowdive.8

Dreamcore is far from homogeneous, unbounded by typical musical tropes or genre restraints—dream-pop and shoegaze in particular have their roots in Black history. Much of the dream scene’s polyrhythmic structure and obscure style draws inspiration from African American music of the 1920s.9 Black British duo A.R. Kane is often credited with inventing shoegaze, blending elements of freeform jazz with Afrofuturism and improvisational feedback.10

Other emblematic dream-pop artists, including Beach House, Mazzy Star and Cocteau Twins, have made a home for themselves and their listeners through their hazy, sonic soundscapes. Each headed by tranquil female vocalists, their music showcases a narrative of swirling, velvet vocals complemented by dark, fluttering undertones that prompt the listener to enter into a trancelike state.

As writer Sofia Lyon explains, the appeal of these melodies lies in our ability to “crawl into these records, float around in them, and process the pain and comfort of memory,” in the same way that the genre exists to remind us “of our uniquely human proclivity for dreaming.”11 The ultimate purpose is to provide a fully immersive listening experience.

The notion of floating through space, be it visual, audio or physical, is likewise captured through space rock bands such as the ethereal Spiritualized. Particularly, one can look to their profound album “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are

⁶ Ibid. ⁷ Caz Tran, “My Bloody Valentine’s second album Loveless remains the ultimate shoegaze record,” ABC, Oct. 25, 2021. 8 Ibid. 9 M.I.C., “Exploring the Black Roots of Shoegaze and Dream Pop,” Mixmag, May 24, 2021. 10 Ibid. 11 Sofia Lyon, “The Heart of Dream-Pop: Beach House Returns with Once Twice Melody,” The Bottomline, March 4, 2022.

Floating in Space,” a groundbreaking expression of the human struggle ideal for 1 a.m. listening sessions while teetering on the edge of wake and dreams.

Although dream-pop tends to be airier, dreamcore music can also border on the downright bizarre. Neo-psychedelic pop band Mild High Club draws on a colorful, hand-crafted aesthetic, mixing acid jazz, synth and trippy cadences meant to “whisk listeners away to a strange land where reality wavers in and out of focus.”12

Meanwhile, hypnagogic artist and animator Jack Stauber takes it to the extreme, fusing nonsensical lyrical storylines with animation through his albums and music videos. Described as “peculiar” and “perplexing,”13 Stauber has partnered with the cartoon program Adult Swim to create animated smalls. These clips feature uncanny characters and deeply offkey soundtracks reflective of an old children’s cartoon that crawled out of the grave, merging MS Paint with

12 Pooja Bale, “‘Going Going Gone’ is psychedelic jazz sensation from Mild High Club,” The Daily Californication, Sept. 21, 2021. 13 Jacob Cannon, “Artist Jack Stauber’s eclectic work reaches new depths,” The Wooster Voice, April 26, 2019. claymation with VHS analog horror.14 Despite the darker undertones, Stauber’s music is distinguished for its upbeat surface sound and whimsical, twinkling melodies, maintaining the youthful element of dreamcore.

For those who engage with the aesthetic, dreamcore exemplifies the heart behind Beacon in a multifaceted way. It’s atmospheric, enchanting, muffled, unsettling and deeply hypnotic. It acts as both a guiding light, allowing us to reflect on our childhoods and our romanticist ideals through a rose-colored lens—whilst warning us of the spaces and things that lie beyond our comfort or perception.

The aesthetic on the whole subtly and sometimes not so subtly reminds us that there’s always more to what we see and think. Dreamcore’s power lies in facilitating a unique and incomparable experience meant to induce a state of mental transcendence and stillness in between our otherwise mundane moments of waking. ■

14 Grant Hinders, “Jack Stauber: The Man, the Myth, the Music,” SHS Today, Dec. 9, 2019.