Cuushe - Do You Know The Way To Sleep (2012)
You may also like: Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, Teen Daze
We are all a bit crazy and enamoured when it comes down to Dreampop, aren’t we? It is the perfect soundtrack for so many moments in our life, at its best it is able to carry us away to spheres which we thought to be inaccessible. So if you ask the averagely well educated music expert out there about the big thing at the moment, his answer since one or two years will (inter alia) almost certainly be: “Yeh, Dreampop you know. All those fuzzy female voices and the gazy guitar sounds, that really wowes the hell out of me.”
Fuzzy, husky female (and also male) voices, accompanied by ethereal, diffuse guitar or keyboard sounds, are these the essential ingredients to create a magnificent piece of Dreampop? Let’s see. Our dear allround-encyclopaedia Wikipedia describes Dream Pop as follows:
”(…) fusing post-punk and ethereal experiments with bittersweet pop melodies into dreamy, sensual soundscapes. (…) The essence of the music is a focus on ethereal textures and moods, rather than on propulsive rock riffs. Breathy, high-register female vocals or almost whispered male vocals are usually the means of lyrical delivery.”
Enlightment.
Lately I stumbled over a Japanese artist named Cuushe and her song Do You Know The Way To Sleep. Apparently, the song found its way into the width of the web a while ago, still I have the impression that until now, not a lot of people made their auditive way to listen to this gem of Dreampop. A gem because, even if I am normally not a big fan of finite defined criteria, I have the impression that Cuushe almost fulfilles every single one of those mentioned above:
Ethereal? Check. Do You Know The Way To Sleep commences with a ethereal synthie landscape, just to be enwrought by melancholic, bittersweet (check no.2) piano chords. Then, after a few moments, Cuushe’s vocals set in: Breathy, almost as soft as a feather, just to bring another layer into an already perfectly fitted ensemble of instruments and acoustic surrounding. To make it short: Not only according to the criteria, but also according to my very own subjective auditive sense, this piece of music is a perfect representative of how Dreampop should sound like.
If you like it, you should also check out Cuushe’s first EP which will contain no less than 3(!) discs. The work named girl you know that i am here but the dream will be published on 20 June via Flau and contains also a few remixes, amongst others one by already renowned Dreampop artist Teen Daze.
