Dream's End

2015 release. Dream's End is set in a landscape of barrier islands, mangroves, and southern maritime forests populated by fantastical creatures and sentient, shape shifting pillars of smoke, Matt Bauer has imagined a fantasy world that allows him to give voice to his most raw and personal songs to date. More melodic, electric, and rhythmic than previous records, Dream's End builds on Bauer's previous orchestral folk arrangements of string quartets and banjos. It expands his range of sounds into near subsonic pedal bass, electric guitars strung as banjos, treated and amplified bells and Wurlitzer, and drums by turns layered and at other times stark and driving (he cites Fugazi's Brendan Canty and the layered drums on Cat Power's You Are Free as inspiration).