Dreamcrusher

Luwayne Glass (dreamcrusher) is a Brooklyn-based noise musician from Wichita, Kansas.[1]

dreamcrusher
OriginWichita, Kansas
GenresExperimental, avant-garde, noise
Years active2003-present
LabelsPTP, Fire Talk, Hausu Mountain, CORPUS
Associated actsShow Me the Body, Deli Girls, Machine Girl, Alice Glass
Websitedreamcrusher.bandcamp.com

Dreamcrusher has been the subject of features in The Village Voice, Pitchfork,[2] and FADER;[3] praised in SPIN [4] and VICE;[5] and was featured in a mini-documentary for PBS Digital Studios' Sound Field.[6] Dreamcrusher's work has also been discussed in scholarly articles in the fields of musicology[7] and queer/affect theory.[8]

Early life and career

Glass, who is non-binary,[9] began making what they describe as "nihilist queer revolt musik"[2] as a teenager sharing tracks on Myspace.[3] After years of touring and over twenty independent releases, Glass moved to New York City in 2015. The same year, Fire Talk Records released Dreamcrusher's Hackers All of Them Hackers to broad acclaim: the release was included in Impose's Best Albums of 2015[10] and SPIN's Best Avant Albums of 2015,[4] with VICE writing that the EP "could be the most important noise record of the year".[5]

In 2016 Dreamcrusher was included on the Adult Swim compilation NOISE alongside artists including Merzbow, clipping., Melt-Banana, Wolf Eyes, and Pharmakon.[11] Dreamcrusher is also featured on hardcore punk band Show Me the Body's "collaborative mixtape" Corpus I,[12] as well as in a music video accompanying the 2017 release.[13]

Grudge2, released in 2018, further solidified Dreamcrusher's reputation as "one of New York’s finest noise mutants".[14] The EP's tracks include "Youth Problem," featuring vocals by Alice Glass of Crystal Castles.

Glass released two full-length albums in the summer of 2020. May's Panopticon! was included in Bandcamp Acid Test's Best Albums of 2020,[15] Entropy's Top 10 Albums of 2020,[16] Post-Trash's Best of 2020,[17] and Mixmag's Albums of the Year.[18] One month later, Glass released the full-length mixtape Another Country, which was included in Afropunk's 2020 in Review.[19]

In October 2020, PBS Digital Studios' Sound Field aired a mini-documentary on Dreamcrusher, titled "The Untold Story of Noise and Experimental Music".[6] Recorded in Brooklyn, New York during the pandemic, the episode features a socially-distanced interview and live performance at Saint Vitus.

Performance style

Dreamcrusher is known for a live performance style that is interactive,[20] high-engagement,[3] and multi-sensorial,[21] with FLOOD magazine describing their live show as "a full-on, full-body sensory experience".[22] Glass says in interviews that they prefer "an exchange with the audience" rather than providing an isolated "spectacle," "like eyeballs are on me, but there’s not an interest";[3] they move through the crowd rather than performing onstage, and often serve as the source rather than object of a show's lighting, wearing a strobing headlamp that illuminates those in the audience.

Those praising Dreamcrusher's live performances often acknowledge that this combination––of high volume, unpredictable movement, and even flicker vertigo––can be jarring,[3] producing feelings of disorientation and vulnerability.[23] Scholars Shoshana Rosenberg and Hannah Reardon-Smith frame the means and aims of Dreamcrusher's "affective atmosphere" as "electronics and harsh vocals (often screamed into the face of their audiences) to explore queerness, experiences of violence, and feelings of societal and relational abjection", but write that the resulting "psychophysiological states" can be transformative, generating "an ethics of care, through mutuality, solidarity and empathy".[8] Similarly, David Farrow considers Glass part of a music community in which explorations, performances, and even productions of pain can forge a "queer kinship" of "social connections that extend beyond performance".[7]

Discography

Albums
Release year Title Label Notes
2013 Incinerator[24] This Ain’t Heaven Recording Concern
2014 SUICIDE DELUXE Hausu Mountain / Fire Talk
2015 Katatonia[2] Obsolete Units
2020 Panopticon! PTP
2020 Another Country PTP

EPs
Release year Title Label Notes
2009 Antipop Dionysian Tapes
2013 CANAL de HOLOGRAMS[25] NoKore
2014 HAINE[26] Lazed In You
2014 Lemlæstelse / I'm All Broke Up Socialre
2015 Split Cassette[27] This Ain’t Heaven with Golden Living Room
2015 Hackers All Of Them Hackers[28] Fire Talk
2016 Quid Pro Quo[29] Fire Talk
2018 Grudge2[30] CORPUS
2020 FICTION EP featuring Dis Fig

References
  1. Graves, Meredith (22 April 2016). "'I Want to Bring Together the Weirdos': An Interview With Dreamcrusher". The Village Voice. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  2. Torres, Eric (23 March 2015). "Queering the Pitch: An Evening with Dreamcrusher". Pitchfork. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  3. Abdurraqib, Hanif (12 October 2017). "Dreamcrusher Finds Peace In Chaos". The Fader. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  4. Joyce, Colin (9 December 2015). "20 Best Avant Albums of 2015". SPIN. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  5. Hill, John (26 October 2015). "Dreamcrusher Has Arrived in a Fury of Noise with 'Hackers All of Them Hackers'". VICE. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  6. "Noise and Experimental Music Is for EVERYONE". PBS Digital Studios. 21 October 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  7. Farrow, David (22 July 2020). "Feeling Pain/Making Kin in the Brooklyn Noise Music Scene". Current Musicology. Columbia University Libraries. 106. doi:10.7916/cm.v106iSpring.6757. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  8. Rosenberg, Shoshana; Reardon-Smith, Hannah (2020). "OF BODY, OF EMOTION: A TOOLKIT FOR TRANSFORMATIVE SOUND USE". Tempo. Cambridge University Press. 74 (292): 64–73. doi:10.1017/S0040298219001190. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  9. "Panelist USA: Luwayne Glass AKA Dreamcrusher". Goethe-Institut. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  10. "The Best Albums of 2015". Impose Magazine. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  11. Cush, Andy (20 December 2016). "Hear Adult Swim's New NOISE Compilation, Featuring Pharmakon, Arca, Prurient, and More". SPIN. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  12. Camp, Zoe (5 April 2017). "Show Me the Body: Corpus I". Pitchfork. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  13. Witmer, Phil (5 April 2017). "We Have No Clue What's Happening in Show Me the Body's "Hungry" Video, But We Can Assume It's Pretty Rad". VICE. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  14. Joyce, Colin (16 November 2018). "Stream of the Crop: 11 New Albums for Heavy Rotation". VICE. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  15. Bowe, Miles (11 December 2020). "The Acid Test's Best Albums of 2020". Bandcamp. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  16. "2020 WAS A YEAR". Entropy Magazine. 30 December 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  17. Wilikofsky, David (28 December 2020). "Post-Trash's Best of 2020 Staff Picks". Post-Trash. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  18. "The Best Albums of the Year 2020". Mixmag. 17 December 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  19. "2020 IN REVIEW: THE ALBUMS". Afropunk. 24 December 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  20. Davies, Jon (20 December 2019). "Interdependence, or how I learned to love again on the dancefloor". Fact Magazine. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  21. Mandel, Leah (23 July 2019). "On losing yourself in order to find yourself". The Creative Independent. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  22. Mandel, Leah (14 May 2019). "15 Noise and Experimental Artists You Should Really Know About". FLOOD Magazine. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  23. McDermott, Patrick (29 October 2015). "Watch Dreamcrusher's Disorienting "Fear (And No Feeling)" Video". THE FADER. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  24. "Dreamcrusher - Incinerator". Tiny Mix Tapes. 28 January 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  25. Masters, Marc. "Dreamcrusher: "Antagonist Part 1"". Pitchfork. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  26. Hill, John (15 August 2014). "Dreamcrusher Is a Queer, Black, Vegan Straight-Edge Noise Artist Who Is Never Changing". VICE. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  27. "GOLDEN LIVING ROOM / DREAMCRUSHER - SPLIT CASSETTE". Tiny Mix Tapes. 21 January 2015. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  28. "Brooklyn, NY digital hardcore musician Dreamcrusher shocks & awes all at once on 'HACKERS ALL OF THEM HACKERS'". Afropunk. 6 January 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  29. "Dreamcrusher Releases Quid Pro Quo EP". Impose Magazine. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  30. Rettig, James (15 November 2018). "Stream Dreamcrusher's Grudge2 EP". Stereogum. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
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