Same Dream is out now!
Image: Supplied.
Sydney indie artist Goodmonster has unveiled his debut EP Same Dream. To celebrate the release, the musician is taking MILKY through the release, track by track!
TREADING WATER
Dreamy, a little fucked up, and sad but triumphant; Treading Water sets an appropriate tone to open this EP with soft vocals and acoustic guitar played over a landscape of verby synths and whale song.
This track spawned from a mix of emotions, tied to two people who have never met: an old friend with whom letters and postcards were traded from opposite ends of the world; and a lover who consumed me piece by bloody piece, threw me away, and then asked why I hadn’t tried harder. It’s a song of being broken and reborn. Of taking chances, and of making your own choices, and being vulnerable in them; “just a boy singing songs to a girl”.
FALL IN LOVE
This track leans punk, but disco. Indie and, dare I say it, a little hip hop. I wanted a harsh edge to the arrangement to portray the internal struggle of thought versus heart, and found it in dissonance.
Written during a period of being single(ish) and wondering as to the nature of love... what’s the point? “Nobody really wants to be alone, so we fall in love...”. You’re an animal; be an animal. Go fuck. Be swayed by the chemicals inside, whether imbibed or self-produced (what we call ‘emotions’), and don’t forget to find peace in what is. Know thyself. Stay thirsty, my friends. Enjoy the hunt. Other suitable DIY self help one-liners. Point is, make up your own damn mind, and “please find another monkey to love me”.
NOWHERE TO RUN
Ever feel trapped by your calendar? Working too much? Social obligations getting you down? This song is about all that, and the desire for “the ocean, and Sundays that last”. It felt right for the middle of the EP because the lyrics have a subtext of being stuck in time, and the cruisey blues 'n' roots-esque vibe supports that. I was snorkeling a fair bit when I wrote it, mostly at Gordon’s Bay in Sydney, and appreciating the meditative qualities of regulating my breath and hunting just to see the myriad of beautiful fish there. Coming back to the share house I then lived in was a catalyst for anxious thoughts and existential uncertainty, but also a pretty great pressure cooker for tender tunes of worry and indecision. War breeds invention, I guess.
WHATEVER THIS IS
Woof. This is a sad song. Or has hopeful, desperate, unrequited-yet-optimistic origins, so it feels sad to think back on the person I was in writing it. The interaction of the electric guitars (one higher, a little frantic, the other lower, providing that good ol’ fashioned dread) spawned an alternative indie punk style that was fun to produce.
The original version differed in two prominent ways: one, originally, there was no irony in the lyrics - I thought I was happy! Or at least was working hard at convincing myself I was, which is tiring. Two, I first produced it as a dancey-80’s-synth-pop banger while foraying into the universe
of virtual synthesisers (still might release that version tbh). The lyrics are realer now, a story of a person desperate to convince themselves that they’ve got it all figured out, that being kept at arm's length is all they’re worth: “I’ll have a couple regrets but maybe this is as good as it gets.”
ONE BURST OF LIGHT (FALL IN LOVE REWRITE)
It’s the final track on the EP, and that’s because it’s about letting go. Or, a better metaphor: going back to sleep.
It’s in the title, really: I rewrote Fall In Love, not to replace it, more as a writing exercise, and that process yielded One Burst Of Light. I wanted to see how the themes fell with a softer landing, yet still with a bit of messy, dirty, sexiness thrown in. Sort of like a bed, still warm, and sounds of a shower running and some faint shared laughter... “I dreamt of you, I think; we were somewhere, doing something.” The production was an exercise in letting go too; the track is recorded by mum on her phone one morning she and my dad had come for brunch. An intimate live performance captured and left mostly alone, apart from some mixing tweaks to help it along the way.
Thanks for reading. I hope you get a kick out of Same Dream, and I look forward to telling you all about the next one
Same Dream is out now!
Same Dream was composed, written and arranged by Dylan Reisch, and performed by Goodmonster. Goodmonster is: Dylan Reisch, with drums (on Whatever This Is, Fall In Love and Nowhere To Run) performed by Charlie Kurthi and bass guitar (on Nowhere To Run) and extra guitar (on Whatever This Is) performed by Sukruth Rao. Same Dream was recorded by Sukruth Rao and Jarad Avnell at Mixed Signal Studios except for One Burst of Light which was recorded live at Dylan’s house by his mum on her phone. The EP was mixed by Daniel Natoli at Kiln and A Sharp Studios except for Treading Water, Nowhere To Run and One Burst Of Light which were mixed by Dylan Reisch with analogue processing by Daniel Natoli at A-Sharp Studios, and mastered by Daniel Natoli at Kiln and A Sharp Studios except for Treading Water and One Burst Of Light which were mastered by Dylan Reisch.