Song of the Day Podcast: Dreamsalon - Soft Stab

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song is 'Soft Stab' by Dreamsalon from the 2014 album Soft Stab on Sweet Rot / Dragnet Records.

Dreamsalon - Soft Stab (MP3)

Local lads done good, Seattle’s Dreamsalon are back in the public consciousness with the follow up to their infectious 2013 debut LP, Thirteen Nights. Members Min Yee, Craig Chambers and Matthew Ford have played in the critically acclaimed bands like Aframes, Factums and Love Tan, just to name a few, so they know how to bring the fury to your speakers and Soft Stab is the proof. The album's title track is spaced out garage psych at its finest, spilling out of the speakers with its genre flirting sounds and shattering any predefined notions that you had about what you were listening to. Muscular and abrasive but simultaneously accessible and well-constructed, the track slowly builds from Lee’s hypnotic bass line to a cascading guitar, resulting in a feverish instrumental freak-out that is matched by the unhinged vocal performance. Dreamsalon excels in crafting out a well-defined internal coherence while constructing a masterful weave in which everything seems to swirl around the next, and on "Soft Stab", they are in their finest form.

Pick up your copy of the recent LP at the group's Bandcamp page and keep up to date with their shenanigans and upcoming shows at their Facebook page page. As an extra treat, check out Soft Stab’s opening jam, "Walkin’ Past my Dreams", below: