Posted on: July 4, 2012 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

“Her Fantasy,” the highly praised lead single––and dare we say summer anthem––gets a very fitting video treatment. Director Tommy O’Haver’s video for “Her Fantasy” takes us on a journey through bizarre sequences of debauchery and seduction with a hint of humor, as he pays homage to Avant Garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger in a self-described “mash-up”. Also, check out the Australian producer Tornado Wallace’s remix of said single. Beams is available August 27th (EU/UK) & 28th (North America).

 

ABOUT HER FANTASY SINGLE:

It’s no coincidence that “Her Fantasy”—the celebratory lead single from Matthew Dear’s, Beams, the follow up to 2010’s Black City—is the album’s opening track: If Beams is the sound of Matthew Dear waking up after the long, dark night of Black City, then “Her Fantasy” is the sun’s first rays, peaking over the horizon. Opening with a head-turning whistle-and-cowbell rhythm, “Her Fantasy” signals Beams’ queasy optimism in classic Matthew Dear avant-pop form—that is, without verses and choruses per se, but by hustling through a series of wickedly catchy sections whose twisted internal logic becomes clear as the song progresses. The track builds to an ecstatic climax, in which Dear’s exhortation to “Sit where you stand / hand on your heart / hand on your man” is gradually engulfed in a cloud of treble-tickling distortion. The “Her Fantasy” single also includes the fizzy, synth-horn-led unreleased track “Crimewaves” and Tornado Wallace’s late-night disco-house take on “Her Fantasy”, in which the Melbourne producer fixes his gaze on the horizon, taking only a few slivers of Matthew Dear’s voice with him. “Her Fantasy” is available now.

 

ABOUT BEAMS:

Our last look at Matthew Dear’s creative cycle was the fathoms-deep starkness of his 2010 album, Black City. A triumph of slowly imploding romanticism, Black City was ultimately just another step in Dear’s creative evolution from his breakthrough Asa Breed (2007) .

 

Beams release date is coming shortly. Matthew Dear has some DJ dates this summer before prepping the band for live dates. Matthew Dear, the relentless songwriter, producer and collaborator, offered an early taste of what to expect from Beams with the well-received EP, Headcage, in January of this year. The highlights were working with other producers (Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid) and vocalists (Johnny from The Drums) which lent Headcage an openness and poise.

 

Recorded in Dear’s home studio and mixed at Nicolas Vernhes’ Rare Book Room studios in Brooklyn, Beams evokes a day-lit dreamworld at once strange and familiar. While the album’s dancefloor-ready tempos, major keys, and sun-warmed synths signal Beams as the lighter, brighter response to its predecessor, closer inspection reveals a squirming mass of oddball details. Dear’s latest productions creak and groan like anxious organisms, with slivers of guitar, electric bass, and drum kit darting in and out among the synths and samples.

 

Early on in Matthew Dear’s Beams— the New York-based artist’s fourth full-length, his first since 2010’s shadowy masterpiece Black City— something strange happens. A thick-fingered electric bass gallops in atop a driving backbeat as Dear sneers, “It’s alright to be someone else sometimes.” It may be odd to hear former techno-wunderkind Matthew Dear playing rock music, but the manic punk pulse of “Earthforms” is just one facet of Beams’ kaleidoscopic journey. Shot through with equal parts optimism and uneasiness, Beams is the latest transmission from one of pop music’s most fascinating creative minds.

 

Beams’ lyrics, meanwhile, are deeply personal, expressing vulnerability and confusion in startlingly immediate ways. “Do I feel love like all of the others or is this feeling only mine?” Dear sings on the strutting lead-off single “Her Fantasy”, later wondering “Am I one heartbeat away from receiving a damaging shock to my life?” Dear has grown into his songwriting voice, and he wears his current lyrical perspective—that of a man with something to lose—with an impressive grace.

 

When all is said and done, the central tension in Matthew Dear’s Beams— musical mischief vs. lyrical maturity—may not be a tension at all. After all, growing up involves learning to integrate all of one’s disparate selves. “I’m about 4 to 5 different people at any given time,” Dear says. “By allowing all of those different personalities to exist– the most pure and direct self can come through in the music. [The songs] may still be cryptic, and full of contradictions—but in my opinion, that is pure, unadulterated thought in musical form. They are direct lines to the center.”

 

In other words, Beams.

 

BEAMS TRACKLIST:

01. Her Fantasy

02. Earthforms

03. Headcage

04. Fighting Is Futile

05. Up & Out

06. Overtime

07. Get The Rhyme Right

08. Ahead of Myself

09. Do The Right Thing

10. Shake Me

11. Temptation

 

TOUR DATES

06.30 Chicago, IL @ Montrose Beach (DJ Set)

07.14 New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge (DJ Set)

07.20 Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall (DJ Set)

07.21 Long Island City, New York @ MoMA PS1 (DJ Set)

09.29 Seattle, WA @ Decibel Festival

11.17 New York, NY @ Webster Hall

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