In Advance of Forthcoming Album, the Dream Syndicate Releases New Music Video

The Dream Syndicate, a veteran psychedelic rock band that we love, emerged in the early ’80s. 

Thirty years on, the band is still at it. The group has just announced its latest effort, The Universe Inside, will come out on April 10. 

“A friend of mine once said, ‘You ought to write a song about longing,’” band leader Steve Wynn explains in a press release. “This was a few years back, but it stuck with me, and when I was listening to minutes 20 through 28 of the improvisation that became ‘The Universe Inside,’ I knew that the suggestion had finally found its proper home. This section of music — that followed in real time the part that became ‘The Regulator’ — felt so mournful and lost and adrift and confused, much like longing itself. You think you know where it’s at? The longing is stronger than that.  Our resident visual interpreter David Dalglish picked up on that feeling for a video that connected hauntingly to that feeling of distance and memory. And now?  Suddenly, it all feels very much of the moment. A chasm, sleepless for day and days, rootless, unsettled and alone.  All that’s left is the longing.”

The band recorded the album in a Richmond studio, and in one session, it recorded 80 continuous minutes of soundscapes. Wynn edited and sculpted those 80 minutes into the album. 

“All we added was air,” he says.

Aside from vocals, horns and a touch of percussion, every instrument is live as it happened.

Wynn has also created a ten-song inspiration playlist of artists that have influenced The Universe Inside. You can listen to his extremely eclectic Inspiration Mixtape here.

You can see the new music video for “The Longing,” a dreamy, David Bowie-like tune, here.

Photo by Tammy Shine.