Dream Affair

The young Brooklyn coldwave trio Dream Affair pay fair homage to gothic sounds of 1980s Britain on their recent Aborted State cassette, fusing voguish Cure/Sisters of Mercy-derived morosity with industrial and pop leanings à la Wierd Records. Prep for October's impending All Hallow's Eve with "The Porter", where the band casts just enough restraint and thematic hopelessness over familiar elements-- skeletal synth melodies, deep mechanized thuds-- to feel distinct. Naturally the track has got a gloomy, self-produced video set in ruinous post-WWII Berlin; Altered State will be out on 12" vinyl early next year via Toronto's Artificial Records. - Pitchfork

My best friends put out this album and I know I’m supposed to be all supportive and everything, but it just reminded me of how uncool I am compared with them. And how they have so many rare records and know so much about synths and stuff, and I don’t. Fuck it, I’m just going to be cool with not being cool (like Amie Barrodale). - Vice

Oh, to be so young but so, so cold… Meet post-punk trio Dream Affair, a Brooklyn-based trio that embodies the cultish cool of early 80s French darkwave with the resonance of a bleak, industrial backdrop. They make the kind of cool music that's cool without the biting sarcasm, the air quotes, scare quotes, whatever is implied in "wow, how cool" these days. I say this because whenever I tell people to check out Dream Affair, I'm like, "Listen to this, it's really, really cool." And I mean just that—cool, like the way you might describe an amazing rare record find not even your most music aficionado of friends know about. I've been to a bunch of their shows, and have often overheard attendees comparing them to the likes of the Killing Joke or Death In June and even once, "music that J.D. and Veronica would be into," which I totally get. It's the kind of music those gothy oddballs in cult films would be listening to while contemplating the sheer boredom of existence or whatever.

Even at their tender age, Dream Affair has a musical palette far beyond their years, which probably has to do with their early interest in obscure music, their obsessive record-collecting habits, and the experiences they picked up from their short but varied lives—like the summer they lived in Berlin and the European tour they played in support of their debut album, Endless Days, which came out last year. Taking those influences from their time spent in Europe, the band has recorded six new songs for a forthcoming cassette, Aborted State, out October 7th via Detroit label Nostilevo.

They also just released a video for their single, "The Porter", which we are premiering here today. It’s an austere illustration of the desolate ruins of post-WWII Berlin after the Soviet takeover. The self-made video shows the band members in a loose interpretation of the story behind the song: a German woman who falls prey to her Soviet predator, only to realize that they are co-dependent on each other. A third character, a voyeur, lurks in the distance, both prey and predator unaware of his malignant intentions. It is creepy and unsettling and I absolutely love it.

Can’t get enough? The band will also be releasing a 12" of Aborted State on the Toronto label Artificial Records early next year. But first things first—they’re playing a show tonight with Merchandise at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, NY and it is not to be missed - you can get more info on that right here. I'll be there, so come say hi to me - I'll be the one wearing all black.

Make sure to check out some upcoming tour dates from Dream Affair. Tapes will be available to purchase at any of these shows, before the official release date:



Dream Affair Fall Dates

9/14 - Brooklyn, NY @ Saint Vitus Bar w/ Merchandise, Rosenkopf & Siamese Twins
10/1 – Allston, MA @ O’Brien’s Pub w/ Timeghost & Amobriax
10/2 – Montreal, QC @ Thee Olde Silver Door w/ Police des moeurs & Chevalier Avant Garde
10/4 – Toronto, ON @ Party Time Punk House
10/5 – Detroit, MI @ Garden Bowl w/ Ritual Howls & Liable for Abuse
10/6 – Chicago, IL @ The Burlington w/ Staring Problem, Cemetery & Mines - Noisey

High on black nail polish and shredded fishnet S&M, the Saturday night club scene is drag for two barely twenty-one year olds (one dude/one dudette) looking for melancholy dance kicks before their last week of summer school ends and their fall semester week begins. Long lines at the woefully stocked bar and a malfunctioning fog machine gummy up the one good Bauhaus dive in town so the couple text a few friends and organize an impromptu house party. Two cheap twelve packs of Lone Star beer and a bottle of tequlia still warm from the trunk of the slightly older dude’s hand me down Corolla arrive at the overpriced (great location tho) bungalow just east of the main nightlife orgy streets. Fifteen glum, but well-loved by their doting parents, kids start awkie talkie in the kitchen and the living room. Someone crate digs the bungalow owner’s vinyl, cassettes and CDs. New Order. Suicide. The Cure and The Smiths (on tape). Early Ministry, Depeche Mode CDs and some pig fuck 7? obscuro hits the stereo. The kids loosen up, start swaying, shoulders twitch and raven colored bangs start beading with sweat.

Claude, the Corolla driver, (“Claude” isn’t his real name, but that’s what he tells the girls in his studio art classes) removed his leather jacket cause he’s feeling the beat. His tight stripped black and white tee is damp from dance and one hastily downed tequila shot. He tells Jeanne, his plus one, that he’s sick of the D.Mode and wants to hear something new. A friend of his whips out his smartphone and cues up a new streaming tune from a band his Brooklyn brother saw live about a month prior. Dream Affair is their name. “Syndrome” is their jam. Thick as a brick drums introduce the song as slashing guitar harmonics lead the way for a driving, no frills lead riff straight outta the 80s. The song is thumping enough to wake even the passed out lovers sharing a corner recliner. They shake their asses to the guitar and synth lines of Dream Affair. The band’s vocalist must be a time traveler. His post-punk singing is a little on the “been there, done that” side of the scale, but the kids don’t seem to mind. The three and a half minute song is on repeat for 2am party come down. Everyone’s either throwing up or going home or making love half conscious. A good time was had by most. - International Tapes

Dream Affair is a black-clad trio (bass, guitar, synth) from Brooklyn who specialize in producing industrial-tinged pop. "Syndrome" is from a forthcoming c20 cassette titled Aborted State via Detroit noise label Nostilevo. Thick-as-brick drum machine beats introduce the song as slashing guitar harmonics make way for a driving, no frills lead riff that's flanged straight outta the '80s. The tune is thumping enough to wake even semi-conscious lovers listless in the corner of a party. (via International Tapes)

Aborted State is out September on Nostilevo. - Ad Hoc

Dream Affair aka Hayden Payne, was part of Void Vision who released a serious piece of synth pop on Blind Prophet Records. Now, as a solo being, Dream Affair releases his début album Endless Days. If you were after a carbon copy of Void Vision you’re plodding down the wrong path, with Endless Days being much more rooted in the indie tradition. The record opens with the title track. A wave of retro fitted indie synth pours forth in this catchy piece of 80s nostalgia. Something of Wierd’s Automelodi in here, but with more of a slant towards Robert Smith. Post punk influences permeate the album, such as the guitar rich “Silent Story” and “Drifting.” Synths are present, but in a backing role. “Lucid” sees analogue chords gather, but the strings are never distant. Female vocals intertwine with synth and string to produce a powerful piece. There is an overarching darkness on the record; the tracks dripping with an unmistakable sorrow. “Until the Fall” is typical of the indie tradition, a light and strummy piece of guitar pop. The LP closes with broody indie wave tones of “Day of the Night.” - Igloo Mag

Based in Brooklyn, NY, Dream Affair printed their first release the last year. "All I Want" was a self released limited EP printed in 100 copies containing five tracks influenced by 80s cold wave and post punk. A year has passed and Dream Affair are back with their debut album titled ENDLESS DAYS which is out on the Italian Avant! records. The album, which is available in CD, vinyl and digital format, contains nine new tracks that bring you back to the early 80s when Cure, Modern English, The Sound and post punk bands like Uk Decay wrote the history of those sounds (I know that you have in mind thousands other bands that you think that deserve to be in the place of some of the ones I mentioned here, but I had to do some names and I did the names that fits the most). Dream Affair are taking the cold wave introspective atmosphere and mixed it with drum machine upbeat tempos adding post punk dry guitar riffs, flanger bass guitar plus synth pads / leads here and there. Male / Female vocal alternation help giving to the whole album a great sound and just check "Lucid" and "Drifting" to realize how cool is that. No matter if you preferred 4AD bands, new wave of post punk, because Dream Affair have them all and they deserve your attention... now! - Chain D.L.K.

From the very first second, some albums reveal that they will enlighten your life and in the case of this Brooklyn-based coldwave band Dream Affair it was definitely like that.

Titletrack "Endless days" contains those stacatto guitars that marked the 80's wave-sound and when a band is able to melt them with synths sounds that could come from Clan Of Xymox's "Medusa", I guess the only right word we can use is a big "wow".

This three-piece band were formed by Hayden Payne who is also involved in Automelodi. People with a fine taste in music will immediately recognise this band as they're one of the current bands that are to be found on Wierd Records, so it's no wonder that the eighties are once again the keyword.

Dream Affair were also the opening band for some American gigs from Chameleons Vox and even if some tracks like "405" or "Lucid" have a touching pop feel (with Asylum Party being the big reference), you can definitely hear that this group is in love with the melancholic wavesongs that were penned down by Mark Burgess or Adrian Borland.

Anyway, it was the type of retro-sound that could convince Italian label Avant!-Records to release their debut and it's one of the wavepop highlights of this year, just like Veil Veil Vanish were last year.

Available on vinyl and cd. Excellent. - Peek-a-boo Magazine

Back in 2009, from the “industrial outskirts” of Brooklyn, came Dream Affair with All I Want, a debut EP worth of material that, for those swimming around to the burgeoning ‘Grave Wave’ spread, marked a strident yet confident step toward a promising document of romantic isolation in an age where 24/7 connectivity has left many of us unaware of a time where simply sitting and thinking was the best way to procure meaning about something. Comment fields be damned, it was the sort of dark and precious thing that existed under its own contemporary invention. At its core was the fantastic “Silent Story” a precise and trouncing confession of love and loss and how it does in-fact never end, this range of breakup emotions we deal with.

Formed in Philadelphia as the guitar-focused project from Hayden Payne then of Void Vision, Dream Affair continue their progression and return with Endless Days a full-length still marked by the same sort of blunt seclusion and dragging existence of before. Available physically from Italy’s Avant! Records and released digitally by the band, the trio’s venture into LP land draws ample similarities to their revered EP, but the biggest change comes from tracks that are cleaner, clearer and now supported by a female- vocal/keyboardist Abby Echiverri. No longer dominated by Payne’s brooding croon, Dream Affair confess here that they’ve certainly let a bit of sunshine through their shades.

Marked by what a press release describes as the cold dichotomy “between bleak indifference and struggling emotions,” Endless Days details specific things like the meaninglessness of apologies and how to react when pushed to conflict. Crisper than “All I Want” and still more punk than any ___-wave tag you can lob, the album’s standouts are found in “Apology” and the Cure’s early-era craft; “Drifting’s” cacophony, chorus-backing guitar; the Payne/Echiverri folk ballad “Until the Fall” and of course, the fundamental “Silent Story” now re-recorded and included here. It very easy to mention how much Dream Affair relies on shelter from the post punk/goth rock umbrella where textbook mentions like Warsaw/Joy Division, The Sisters of Mercy, Magazine, The (early) Cure, Bauhaus, Wax Trax’s heyday or the insurmountably distant production of one Martin Hannett are increasingly bumping elbows for space. Where it differs is how much Dream Affair ceases to bend a knee at the synth-heavy, shiny “pop” mentality that’s ultimately been built out of the aforementioned scene and its, uh, “rebirth.” See how the likes of Interpol, Editors or She Wants Revenge can pull one shivering, angular guitar line out from under the umbrella, drench it in synths, arena rock choruses and well-financed production value and still get away with not being that lost under a generalized and modern “post punk” tag.

More a part of whatever rebirth it is that’s happening, I’d like to imagine that Dream Affair know that instead of waiting under the umbrella for the rain to stop, they are dragging the thing behind them, leaving a sense that the ghosts in the walls they’re referencing aren’t going anywhere, so why not create something with mood and space that elegantly cites their heroes while also creating something mysterious enough to surprise and please whoever it is that flips the disc around to find a date stamp not of 1984, but of 2011. - Mishka Bloglin

Brooklyn’s Dream Affair is the newest project from Hayden Payne, formerly of Void Vision. His new project doesn’t stray too far from that dark terrain as this three-piece’s debut EP adds to the ever-growing grave wave. These guys are young and their influences are pretty raw, but they they use them oh so well. Opener “Silent Story” starts with a crack and a guitar riff that wouldn’t feel out of place on The Cult’s Love, before you’re overtaken by a more rowdy rabble echoing from within the song… echos of Gang of Four, Magazine and yes Joy Division take over. There’s a lot of 80s Post-Punk worship on All I Want, but none of it is derivative. It’s a fresh and clean re-working similar to what the Horrors accomplished recently. You think you know this sound, this song, this riff but you don’t.

It might take more than one listen, but like a boulder rolling down hill your appreciation of this EP will pick up speed until Dream Affair are on repeat in your playlist. Though I’ll admit, if you haven’t gotten absorbed by the time you hit track three, “Until You Fall” you may just need to spend a bit more time in cemeteries drinking wine and ruminating on the pros and cons of drum machines vs. drum pads. If you’re already there, well then you’re already there.

I also like that they have incorporated two great goth/postpunk bands into the titles of their songs, whether it’s intentional or not, with the a fore mentioned “Until the Fall” and the following track. “A Cure” starts with pounding drums and phasing guitar notes that turn into full on distorted guitar playing for the end of the chorus but its pleasing to my brain that it’s in there. Again like the rest of the tracks the drums sound brilliant, it’s some really nice programming that’s got them so dynamic and also so totally classic sounding. For the final track “No Use Hiding” they up the synth beats and add a hyper speed drum machine hi-hat with great chiming guitar strokes washing over the top of it all.

You come away from this EP with one half of you feeling like you’ve discovered a hidden classic from ’84, something that one of the Post-Punk rarities blogs may have posted up, a gem that slipped everyone bodies radar back then. While the other half of you is exalting this band for actually being around now, managing to craft something that plays so freely with the record collections that influenced them and yet keeps the sound really creative and fresh. All I Want was limited to one hundred hand-numbered CDs that they produced themselves, or digital copies. All of which you can get via the player below. - Mishka Bloglin

Local trio Dream Affair are playing tonight's (8/31) Wierd party at Home Sweet Home. It's a record release party for the band's debut, Endless Days, which is out now on Avant! Records. If you like you coldwave/postpunk with a little Wax!Trax!-style clanging beats, definitely check 'em out.
You can download two tracks from the album via a widget at the bottom of this post. Also down there, the video for the album's title track. - Brooklyn Vegan