Dreamtime
	no production credits
	Released on September 1981
	US CHART POSITION #177
	Find it at GEMM
BSK 3539 cover

D reamtime is audibly a product of the late ‘70s New York alternative rock scene, recalling the music of Talking Heads and Lou Reed from that time. But where David Byrne was anxious, and Reed detached, Tom Verlaine prefers to make haunted music, with shadowy lyrics and ghostly guitars that dance together in dark, sometimes dire arrangements. Verlaine’s voice could be described as a hybrid of Michael Stipe and Pere Ubu’s David Thomas (does a mumbler + a croaker = a crumbler?), but the lyric sheet sheds light on the singer’s murky subjects. The pictures he paints are often fragmentary; fleeting images that arise in a half external/half internal dialogue. The music is moody, chomping at the bit to break out like Iggy Pop might, but more often engaging in brief, Byrdsian flights of jangly guitar (imagine Peter Buck playing on Talking Heads’ debut album, and you’re close). Verlaine is primarily a minimalist, stringing bits of sound together brilliantly when he needs to, as on “Penetration” and “Down on the Farm.” He rarely creates obvious melodies -- “Mary Marie” and “Without a Word” are pleasant exceptions -- preferring taut pieces that jerk about, like “There’s a Reason” and “A Future in Noise.” The relatively romantic (and “relative” is the key here) “Always” was selected as the album’s single, but it never stood a chance to chart -- it’s just not that good. The rest of Dreamtime is, and makes this a solid entrée into Tom Verlaine’s post-Television career.

BSK 3539 back cover	BSK 3539 lyric sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. THERE'S A REASON    3:38
2. PENETRATION    4:00
3. ALWAYS    3:57
4. THE BLUE ROBE    3:53
5. WITHOUT A WORD    3:16
6. MR BLUR    3:23
7. FRAGILE    3:26
8. A FUTURE IN NOISE    4:13
9. DOWN ON THE FARM    4:48
10. MARY MARIE    3:23
    
    All songs written by Tom Verlaine

CREDITS

TOM VERLAINE -- guitars, solos and vocals, bass (2)
JAY DEE DAUGHERTY -- drums
RITCHIE FLIEGLER -- guitars
DONALD NOSSOV -- bass
FRED SMITH -- bass
RICH TEETER -- drums
Bruce Brody -- keyboards
Robert Clifford -- engineer, mixing
Alan Varner -- mixing
James Hamilton -- photography
George Delmerico -- design

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