Local Music Round-Up | In Lieu & Dreamspook

In Lieu - "Bunge"

In Lieu stand tall in the indie rock heritage of Sleater-Kinney. The Minneapolis quartet bring a winking fire on the first single from their forthcoming Hatemail EP. "Bunge" spasmodically shifts between riff-fueled verses and Nikii Post's pleas of "Go outside / I'm outside." Post's melodic vocals are the anchor around which the rest of the band hurtles like a punk centrifuge. The track eventually dissolves into heavy and heady dirge - there's a delightfully jagged guitar solo and everything. It slaps.

Hatemail is out on April 16, 2019. Listen to "Bunge" below.

Dreamspook - Flying Mammal EP

Colors always streak the sky in the universe of Dreamspook, the electronic project of Minneapolis musician Gabriel Jorgensen. With chilly synths in his arsenal, Jorgensen crafts tiny universes of pulsing sound and impressionistic lyrics. These songs' heartbeats never advance beyond a gentle pace, yet they capture the listener with hypnotic simplicity. More often than not, the building blocks are nothing more than oceanic chords, a drum machine, and Jorgensen's tenor vocals. It gives the songs the clarity and elegance needed to convey the underlying emotions. "Strange Correspondence" and "You Remain Pure 2 Me" are songs of pure devotion. Quasi-title track "The Only Flying Mammal" is an encouraging whirlwind of imagery and ambient textures. Jorgensen fleshes out Flying Mammal with a pair of plain, beautiful drone pieces. Neither break news ground, but finds joy orbiting a Stars of the Lid-esque planet. There is a looseness to Dreamspook's approach (likely due to the fact that it was made mostly in one day), a perfect imperfection. It is a deliberate step into creative freefall, done out of necessity rather than desire. The supreme contradiction of the bat gives thematic weight to every effort. 

Flying Mammal was released in October 2018. It was engineered and mixed by Bad Bad Hats' Connor Davison.