Thomas Truax’s Dream Catching Songs is, to quote his own song, “a wonderful kind of strange.”
Indeed, as (the great) Brian Eno once said, “Here come the warm jets.” Or, as (the equally great) David Byrne sang, “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco – this ain’t no fooling around.” This is that sort of art-rock with catchy choruses and big electric-guitar hooks with warm intelligentsia to burn sort of record.
By the way, Thomas Traux is the inventor of the always welcome hornicator — which is a “pimped up gramophone” that’s “more akin to a William Burroughs-styled hallucination than an instrument.” As my friend Kilda Defnut said, “That hornicator is sort of like Ian Anderson’s claghorn, but just a bit niftier.” And then she also commented about this music: “This is a melodic soup, served with a side order of curried percussive baked bread.”
That said, Dream Catching Songs is rife with clever tunes. The title track begins with forest noises and a simplistic beat, courtesy of the former Siouxie drummer guy Budgie! There’s a bit of a flashback to the satire of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s “Hunting Tigers Out in India.” But the song slowly unfolds into a beautiful melodic ride that smokes with a dramatic slowly waltzed Kevin Ayers’ “Song From the Bottom of a Well” vibe. Nice.
“Everything is Going to Be All Right” does turn on those warm Eno jets with a spoken mish mash of cool jumbled very modern commentary that erupts into a tremendous “Everything is going to be all right” chorus. Ditto for “The Anomalous Now,” with spoken wisdom that conjures the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” then evolves into a pretty great rock ‘n’ roll irresistible pulse. Nice, again.
Lest we forget, Thomas Truax’s other invented oddity, Mother Superior – “a dizzying array of growls, clangs, and thumps” that propels this music into some sort of trashcan collective euphoria, with a whirling bicycle wheel and (perhaps!) a mind of its own, that duels with (the before-mentioned) Budgie on his standard kit. Now this percussive tandem may not rival Phil’s workout with Bill or Chester in post-Gabriel Genesis, but it’s still pretty cool!
All that said, the off-kilter fun continues. “Birds & Bees” rocks with Brylcreem guitar gusto, complete with a Stray Cat “Ubangi Stomp” ethos. “A Wonderful Kind of Strange” slows the pace with a thick expected-rain melodic worry. Tension touches the heartbeat of the song. Again, Budgie propels the percussion of the tune. Oh my!
“Origami Spy Arrives in a Paper Boat” (great title, that!) is an instrumental that searches the universe for fellow life forms with a simple electric pulse and all sorts of sonic sounds that conjure a Christmas greeting card to those fellows on some distant globe with thoughts of a much better approaching year – which may or may not take our accustomed 365.25 days. This is eerie wormhole hornicator stuff.
In contrast, “A Little More Time” returns to rock ‘n’ roll finger-snapping Stray Catting stuff, with an ungodly godlike electric guitar solo and really nice vocal harmonizing. To keep the cosmic wormhole rough-rider vibe alive, “Big Bright Marble” contemplates, with abruptly melodic guitar and Budgie percussive pulse, the magic of our beloved Sun — the center of life in our lovely solar system. Then, “Free Floaters” continues with a melody that defies gravity in its own weightless melodic way.
The final song, “The Fisherman’s Wishing Well Prayer,” certainly lives up to its pretty neat title. This is an urgent folk-rock tune that really does conjure the emotion of Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie with drama and wisdom and that (before-mentioned) Brylcreem guitar gusto. The song then evolves into a Starry Night free-jazz piano dance that somehow manages a descent onto a soft spoken and dramatic vocal feather bed landing.
Thomas Truax’s Dream Catching Songs spins with gadgets, gizmos, weird combustions, Budgie the drummer, urgent electric guitar, the odd idea or two — all of which dance on the head of a pin with a lot of angels who love growls, clangs, thumps, and the occasional jovial amen of great art-infused and quite inventive rock ‘n’ roll music.
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