LOS ANGELES, CA- Earlier this month, The Dream Syndicate released their 7th studio album, The Universe Inside, an album that not only harkens back to the groundbreaking paisley underground sound that they championed back in the early 80s, but also expands into an unbridled sonic exploration, a soundscape where fuzzed-out psychedelia and cinematic jazz harmoniously coexist. Clocking in at just under an hour, the 5 tracks that compose The Universe Inside is more than just an album filled with ear-catching jams. It is a musical meditation on a vibe.
The band has stated that the music of The Universe Inside was created when “[t]he Dream Syndicate were in a Richmond studio after midnight working out ideas when Stephen McCarthy dropped by and became a catalyst for uncharted exploration. In one session, they recorded 80 continuous minutes of soundscapes. Lead singer and songwriter Steve Wynn took that raw tape back to his NYC home and played the shit out of it and thought, “My god, there’s an album here, damn it!”
Leading up to the release of The Universe Inside, the band has dropped epic videos for several of the album’s tracks. The video for “Apropos of Nothing” is the third official music video for this album
The glorious instrumentation and arrangement notwithstanding, the lyrics of “Apropos of Nothing” are intriguing. In my eyes, it’s a poem about the inconsequential. Each verse gives us beautiful imagery and/or thought-provoking themes, that seem to carry weight in the way it’s eloquently described, only to be tossed aside as something “apropos of nothing” (having no relevance to any previous discussion or situation).
Ballerina sunset against the sky
Crimson tinted Sunday slide
Underneath the overpass above the drain
That sluices and dithers on override
What were you expecting
What did you recall
Apropos of nothing
Chain reaction before the fall
Customized detailed decked out and loaded
Subliminal flashing incandescent dream
Read between the lines to pass the time
I’ll be there waiting when your light turns green
You know and I know the bells that toll
Are just Pavlovian entropy
Orientation is so overrated
My sideways, reversible calligraphy
Combine these lyrics with the “trippy” music and set it to an equally avant-garde visual piece, and you certainly have something that you’re likely to conjure up in your own dreams.
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