Paisley Underground vets the Dream Syndicate have announced their second album since reforming in 2012, These Times, out May 3 via ANTI. The new record follows 2017’s Did I Find Myself Here?, their first album since 1988’s Ghost Stories, and was produced by John Agnello (Phosphorescent, Waxahatchee, Hold Steady, Dinosaur Jr.). Alongside the announcement, the band has shared the lead single off the album, “Black Light.” Frontman Steve Wynn found some unlikely inspiration for their fifth studio album, producer/rapper J Dilla.
“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.”
Earlier this year, the Dream Syndicate contributed to the Paisley Underground covers compilation 3 x 4: The Bangles, The Three O’Clock, The Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade. Watch the trippy video for “Black Light” as well as their 2017 KEXP in-studio performance below.
I'm actually feeling like a pretty bad music nerd right now, because somehow I've never heard The Dream Syndicate's debut album, The Days of Wine and Roses, which the Internet seems to agree is one of the most important albums of the 1980s (and when the Internet agrees on something, you really shou…
Considering the early 80's were the heyday of The Dream Syndicate, you're forgiven if, like the song says, you're "just trying to remember the days of wine and roses". As leaders of the so-called Paisley Underground, the LA band carried the sounds of the previous decade, particularly of The Velvet …
Too much awesome to keep track of on Sunday at Bumbershoot 2014. Saturday may have gotten the party started, but Sunday is where jaws started dropping left and right. Chris Stamey made the Big Star's Third performance one of the most beautiful and captivating things that has ever happened on the mu…
