Kenny Becker had an idea. Goon, his LA-based psych-pop quartet, had just released 2022’s Hour Of Green Evening, a lush live-band affair tracked together in the studio. That album was a work of placid splendor, achingly pretty but with a vaguely unsettled undercurrent, like a darker, more lysergic update on Real Estate’s pastoral sighs. It was a real achievement, one that elevated Goon’s standing within the independent music world, but Becker was feeling the urge to mess with the band’s approach next time around. He wanted to merge the pristine, straightforward, live-in-the-room qualities of Green Evening with “more of the haphazard, intuitive, 4-track cassette, homemade style” that had previously characterized the band when he began it as a home recording project a decade ago.
Enter Claire Morison. Goon intended to spend a couple days tracking drums with Morison at her studio Wild Horizon Sound, but that commitment soon snowballed into making a whole album together as band and producer locked into an intoxicating flow state. The resulting Dream 3 is indeed more fucked-up (complimentary) than Goon’s last record. Even more so than on Green Evening, these surreal songs are streaked with a euphoria that sometimes resembles creeping dread — perhaps because Becker’s marriage fell apart not long into the recording process, lending new dimensions to compositions that initially were conceived as blissout music.
As Becker put it in an artist’s statement accompanying the album, “To have started making something that was bringing me so much joy and then to finish it in the midst of utter heartbreak and the beginning stages of healing was deeply transformative, both for me and this collection of songs.” He cites the glittering and propulsive “Closer to” as a prime example: “I had written ‘next one is a big one’ thinking it could be a cool thing for someone else to hear, when in fact I, unknowingly, was the one who needed to brace myself and truly had no idea my life was about to change.”
Though tinted by Becker’s personal upheaval, the album maintains its predecessor’s focus on the natural world, be it the lyrics about “cicadas in the yard” on “Patsy’s Twin” or song titles like “Apple Patch,” “For Cutting The Grass,” and “This Morning Six Rabbits Were Born.” Yet despite its focus on the natural world, Dream 3 does seem to be taking place in an alternate dimension or some prismatic state of perception. Some psych bands gesture at the idea of altered consciousness, but Goon really take you there, drugs or no drugs.
Dream 3 gets some of its incandescent qualities from Becker’s voice, an instrument that can sound androgynous but more often just feels alien. You can hear a relatable ache in his performances even when the actual sounds he generates seem impossible to replicate. The closest parallel may be Jeremy Enigk in the prettiest, least aggressive moments of Sunny Day Real Estate’s How It Feels To Be Something On. Becker’s vocals are somehow both understated and intense, alive yet disembodied like laser light, making him an appealing narrator for the album’s smeared fantasias.
Those sonic environments teem with guitar action. Riffs and textures abound, suggesting Becker and Dillon Peralta are getting full use out of their pedalboards. Sometimes they conjure echo-drenched melodies that mirror or accent Becker’s vocal lines, evoking the fretwork of folk guitar masters as much as the heroes of jangle-pop; other times the racket resembles waves of noise rising up from the deep, the vibrations blurring into dense thickets of sound. It’s all infused with an alluring unreality that reminds me of ML Buch’s Suntub, though listeners might also catch glimpses of psych-pop peers from Mercury Rev to GIFT in Goon’s gorgeous sprawl.
Mostly, though, it just sounds like Goon. There’s a coherent sense of self all throughout the album, an unmistakable imprint developed over a decade as Goon evolved from Becker’s solo project into the formidable entity it is today. Not that they hem themselves into any kind of stereotypical patterns here; it may be tempting to write off the shoegaze elements in “Closer to” as trend-chasing, but surprise pivots like the aggro freakout in “Patsy’s Twin” communicate that Goon are riding their own wave. On Dream 3, that current takes them to spectacular places.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out
• Wet Leg’s Moisturizer
• Open Mike Eagle’s Neighborhood Gods Unlimited
• Nuvolascura’s How This All Ends
• Allo Darlin’s Bright Nights
• Midwife & Matt Jencik’s Never Die
• Burna Boy’s No Sign Of Weakness
• The Swell Season’s Forward
• Mal Blum’s The Villain
• Nicholas Craven & Boldy James’ Late To My Own Funeral
• Florence Road’s Fall Back
• Ava Mendoza, gabby fluke-mogul, & Carolina Pérez’s Mama Killa
• GIVÄ’ON’s BELOVED
• Mike Polizze’s Around Sound
• Aunt Katrina’s This Heat Is Slowly Killing Me
• Chris Stamey’s Anything Is Possible
• Half Japanese’s Adventure
• New Robert Pollard band Rip Van Winkle’s Blasphemy
• Guided By Voices’ Goodnight El Dorado live album
• Worlds Worst’s American Muscle
• Nate Mercereau, Josh Johnson, & Carlos Niño’s Openness Trio
• Joey Waronker & Pete Min’s King King
• Barry Can’t Swim’s Loner
• Noah Cyrus’ I WANT MY LOVED ONES TO GO WITH ME
• Andy Boay’s You Took That Walk For The Two Of Us
• Yelawolf & J. Michael Phillips’ Whiskey & Roses
• World’s First Cinema’s Something Of Wonder
• Horror Movie Marathon’s DISCOUNT DEATH MASK
• Split Chain’s motionblur
• Gwenno’s Utopia
• Midnight Rodeo’s Chaos Era
• Kokoroko’s Tuff Times Never Last
• Poor Creature’s All Smiles Tonight
• Nina Cobham’s Basis Of A Pinky Promise
• Mark Stewart’s The Fateful Symmetry
• Dean Lewis’ The Epilogue (Deluxe)
• The Wildmans’ Longtime Friend
• Somerset Thrower’s Take Only What You Need To Survive
• Brent Cobb & The Fixin’s’ Ain’t Rocked In A While
• Tanner Usrey’s These Days
• Peter Salett’s Suite For The Summer Rain / Dance Of The Yellow Leaf
• Dom Salvador’s DOM SALVADOR JID024
• 81355’s Bad Dogs
• Sunking’s I Don’t Like My Telephone
• Autocamper’s What Do You Do All Day?
• dead7’s LOVE WHAT YOU CAN WHILE YOU STILL GOT SOMETHING LEFT TO LOVE
• Stephen J. Kalinich & Friends’ I Love My Life
• Gina Birch’s Trouble
• Willow Skye-Biggs’ Elsewhere
• The Queen & I’s At Peace
• RebÅ«ke’s The World Of Era
• Qur’an Shaheed’s Pulse
• Africa Express’s Africa Express Presents… Bahidorá
• Ketch Secor’s Story The Crow Told Me
• Leo Luchini’s Slug It Out
• phase space’s Degrees Of Freedom
• Sister.’s Two Birds
• Molly Joyce’s State Change
• Fly By Midnight’s The Fastest Times Of Our Lives
• Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley’s Flashing Spirits
• Sarah Sommers’ VIVID
• Cian Ducrot’s Little Dreaming
• Jake Minch’s George
• Cruelster’s Make Them Wonder Why
• J. Isaiah Evans & The Boss Tweed’s Americana Radio
• VIVIZ’s A Montage Of ( )
• N8NOFACE’s As Of Right Now
• Ólafur & Talos’ A Dawning
• Loe Shimmy’s Rockstar Junkie
• Calva Louise’s Edge Of The Abyss
• Nathan James’ Hollywood Mortician
• Rockabye Baby!’s Lullaby Renditions Of Daft Punk
• Fuubutsushi’s Columbia Deluxe live album
• The Teskey Brothers’ Live At The Hammersmith Apollo
• Various artists’ Just For One Day – The Live Aid Musical
• Various artists’ All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978 -1985
• Jethro Tull’s Living In The Past box set
• The Kinks’ The Journey Part 3 compilation
• Backstreet Boys’ Millennium 2.0
• Sam Williams’ Act II: COUNTRYSTAR EP
• Superdestroyer & PhonesWithChords’ Surrealist Love Songs EP
• Sun Room’s RITUAL OF CHAOS EP
• TOKiMONSTA’s Eternal Reverie Remixes Pt. 3 EP
• Vinson’s Rhythmic Pool EP
• Flooding’s object 1 EP
• Deep Thrills’ How Deep Is Your Thrill? EP
• Empty Nesters’ Deaf Monks EP
• Pegg’s Presque Tout: Variations no. 435-514 “Baseball Season” EP
• Kalie Shorr’s My Type EP
• GRACEY’s Ladybug EP
• Cosmorat’s POOSHKA EP
• Pat Hatt’s Pat Hatt EP
• Brutus VIII’s Do It For The Money EP
