My Review: The Churchhill Garden - Dreamless

 The Churchhill Garden - Dreamless

Even angels ask for help, they spill the beans, they reach out their hand, they grasp at the don't-know-what in order to find the light again. And if to do so are two artists always in a state of grace, who would never make us think of a moment of trouble, here we receive a surprising news: it all happens in the notes of this song with pyjamas, a slow meteor seeking re-entry into the heavenly atmosphere, into life, into the earthly condition. These are thoughts slipping through the hands of Andy Jossi, increasingly focused on traversing the spaces with his delicate but tension-filled atmospheres, made obedient by his irrefutable talent. And in the words and voice of Krissy Vanderwoude, here more than ever a sad-faced fairy, gathered in her cloud, searching for the right ray. Stunning track, a concentrate of the Swiss-American duo's trademark, capable of revealing how true friendship becomes the environment for a complicit writing, adherent to reality, leaving it all to the doom of these almost six minutes, in which what happens is a cry tamed by guitars in alternative mode first, dream pop then, and finally shoegaze, to circulate in the swamp of a text that seems to be devoid of oxygen and that is interpreted by the Chicago singer with a transport that does not give up delicacy, but that this time includes drops of bitter tears. Without dreams one could plunge, musically speaking, into a sonic ruckus, anger, or stop playing at all. Instead.
Instead we listen to whispers that take in specific moments of the last thirty years, collected as inspiration by Andy who then, in his room full of shining artifices, sews on the neck of his guitar a melodic pattern that once again has his own style, highly recognizable. For her part, Krissy works as always with the play of double voices, with her angelic breath that this time has low but powerful eyes, with the dutiful zest that comes out to bring to fruition her need: to find dreams and make them walk in her heart. Both music and lyrics visit, with class and lightness, hell: in the tangle of liquid-filled notes ascending to heaven, the words descend in an inquiry that finds truth. The drum machine opens the slow dance, then it is the guitars that are accompanied by a delicate keyboard and, ever so gently, we come to the refrain that shakes with its lightness, as if it were a drop of frost in front of the entrance of pain. As soon as it is over, Andy enters straight as a spindle into a heartbreaking arpeggio and the voice returns, to compact this winter poem into the centre of our listening.
We weep as we embrace this pair of artists and leave sweaty but convinced that sometimes art performs miracles.We all come together to toast this sincere, humble song that will make our listening a heavenly blessing...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

8th December 2023

https://thechurchhillgarden.bandcamp.com/track/dreamless