When Gene Woolfolk calls his new solo endeavor Dream Tent a “low-pressure project,” I can see where he’s coming from. Since the dismantling of noise-rock provocateurs the Powder Room in 2017, Woolfolk has been lending out his services and touring with the likes of Plaque Marks, T Hardy Morris, and most recently, Vincas. Writing and recording his own music hasn’t been much of a priority; that is, until circumstances changed earlier this year. After moving into a new house with Erica Strout of Motherfucker, Woolfolk finally had the space and the motivation to start working on something new.
“I recorded my first DT song in about 4 hours in August about a week after Erica and I moved into a new house together,” he says. “I finally had my own room to work in instead of being crammed in a one-bedroom apartment. My practice space was too noisy and recording there never felt as comfortable as it has been since I set up at home. I am able to work conveniently at my own pace… I needed my own thing. I needed to fill that void of creating songs on my own. Dream Tent became that thing.”
While the stakes may be small, Dream Tent’s debut single sounds anything but low-key. Featuring Strout on vocals, the song’s feverish shoegaze thrust sounds like it’s punching a hole through the fabric of the universe. Whereas the Powder Room’s mission was to scorch listeners with incendiary riffs and suck all the oxygen out of the building, here the intent seems to be to blast people into the heavens and scatter their atoms to the wind. “We Lost Control” sounds positively massive, overflowing with oceanic guitars that gently pulverize, if you can imagine such a thing. Meanwhile, Strout’s murky croon is enough to keep you focused on the transcendental moment, even as the song’s swooning atmosphere oscillates between ecstasy and terror. In a word: stunning.
More Info
Bandcamp: dreamtent.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @dreamtentmusic
Instagram: @dreamtentmusic