by Matty McPherson (@ghostplanetmatt)
“WOO!” I’m referencing the singular vocal quip that the Sunwatchers anti-facist jazz fusion quartet let out on Oh Yeah?’s “Love Paste”. They’re not ones to talk, forgoing words to utilize every facet of their bodies and bring voices to their instruments, “Standing In Solidarity With The Dispossessed, Impoverished and Embattled People of The World”. Each album of theirs has flirted further with how pop can function in that template even as the quartet has remained perseveringly instrumental. Recurring Dream is not a Sunwatchers stand-in; a fact made noticeable only ten seconds into the album when Jeff Tobias takes to the microphone to inform us, “By the time they learned who the real fascists were, it was already too late.”
It’s a bit of a surprise to hear Tobias take to the microphone. Not just because he’s more hushed than his saxophone implies. He takes the quiet implications of what Sunwatchers have tried to set forth and does so LOUDLY, with a level of swaggering discontent and wry wit nonetheless. Tobias may be modest in his range, yet across Recurring Dream’s ten tracks, he paints vivid portraits of “money poisoning” and consumer malaise run amok; opine a vision of “what happened in Venezuela,” and most importantly, our impending doom at the hands of the white male gaze. The vignette stories are easy to latch onto and find yourself caught up in. It’s not just because they feel like they are literally staring into the abyss, but that they look at class and power in a way Sunwatchers were limited.
However, to assume that Tobias is coming to this project with only his saxophone and Sunwatchers on the CV is a huge disservice. A good chunk of this album is jazzy and rhythmic (especially the Holiday Music instrumentals that could swell up a whole Sunwatchers LP), yet Recurring Dream is a bonafide panoptical hodgepodge of sounds that Tobias has sauntered through over nearly two decades. He’s traversed early Bomb the Music Industry and mid-era of Montreal; played on a key track on Amen Dunes “millennial Astral Weeks” and jammed with A. Savage; Tobias even went to Dolphine with Mega Bog and struck a jazzy partnership with Jack Cooper. He has, in other words, a maverick-tinged ethos when it comes to bummer pop. If he needs to pull the sound of an airplane or bring in a contributor to provide a gospel voice that sounds like a harmonica, Tobias can and WILL.
Basically I mean to say that these songs of malaise and discontent operate at such a high level of potency because each and every instrument and collaborator is upholding mood-setting, while further enunciating his lyrics in twisted ways. “We’re Here to Help” is at its lyrical core a character study of rich pricks, but with syncopated lounge rhythms to bop to, it begets black comedy. “The Hanging Man” is a lounge track not far removed from Mega Bog, but droney synths and Becky Lovell’s backing vocals terraform it into a dreamy yet somber candlelight waltz. “Thank You for Your Service” is minimalist indie rock–handclaps, snaps, flutes, and bass lines–which is not the sound expected when it takes a thousand yard stare approach to white privilege. “Ghost Story” may cry at you “PLEASE BE SERIOUS MAN!” even while it skips n’ steps through wicked flute and vocal manipulations. It’s to Tobias’ credit that Recurring Dream amply makes bummer pop worth dancing to.