A Dream of Another

LP

2023

Shattered lapis blue vinyl. Ilyas Ahmed has spent nearly two decades trudging through the murkiest sonic territories with patient consideration on his own, as a full time member of Grails, and together with the likes of Liz Harris (Grouper), Golden Retriever, and most recently Jefre Cantu-Ledesma on their 2021 collaborative LP 'You Can See Your Own Way Out'. Across a string of exquisite releases on Root Strata, Immune, Digitalis, and Time-Lag, the Pakistan-born, Portland, Oregon-based musician has spread out a tapestry of spectacular solitude, somewhere between off-kilter folk and grimly contemporary ambient music

Now, Ahmed returns to Geographic North with 'A Dream of Another', a spiritual successor to the distantly seething 'Behold Killers' (2019 via Geographic North) and his most hallucinatory and benevolently bereft record to date. Here, Ahmed sets out a new, more oblique path than ever before, eschewing lyrics and vocals, incorporating a solemn drum machine, and charting a series of waking dreams. The end result is a masterful LP written, recorded, and performed entirely by Ahmed, mastered by Chuck Johnson, and continues the excruciatingly beautiful, pained traditions of somber avant-melodists like Vini Reilly and Loren Connors

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