Eccentronic Research Council, the project of Sheffield-based musicians Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer, have shared details of a sequel to their 2015 release The Dreamcatcher Tapes.
The first release was birthed to mark the 50th anniversary of the BBC broadcast of Delia Derbyshire and Barry Bermange’s Inventions For Radio: The Dreams, a collection of spliced and reassembled interviews with people describing their dreams, to which Derbyshire applied music. In tribute, Eccentronic Research Council released their own album soundtracking the recalled dreams of friends, artists, actors, musicians, scientists, poets and filmmakers.
During lockdown, Flanagan and Honer once again put out a call to musicians, nurses, teachers, writers and more to record their dreams into their phones for The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volume 2. You can watch a video for ‘Maxine’s Dream’, featuring regular ERC collaborator Maxine Peake, above.
Speaking about the video, Peake said: "I don’t get out of bed for less than £20, luckily I didn’t have to. My most challenging role to date. All my own stunts. I’m very proud of my intricate and thoughtful work on this and I’m waiting for my call from the Academy. Enjoy!"
The two instalments of The Dreamcatcher Tapes are being compiled into both a bespoke 37-track double cassette box set and a 26-track double coloured vinyl release. Collaborators across the two releases include filmmaker Carol Morley, Andy Votel from Finders Keepers records, tQ’s own John Doran, writers Benjamin Myers and Adelle Stripe, and musicians including Audiobooks’ Evangeline Ling, Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi and The Orielles’ Sidonie Hand-Halford.
"I was really interested to see how the enforced lockdown and the removal of people’s basic needs such as human contact and hanging out in close proximity to other humans was affecting the dreams of my friends, peers and those at the very front line of this horrible pandemic," says Flanagan of the new project. "It was an interesting experiment. Nurses dreaming of inadequate PPE and having to use blow up Elvis costumes to protect themselves. Teachers dreaming of zombies and lots of people dreaming about sex – where the hair of Greek sorceress Circe meets bouncy castle breasts. And where other dreamers dream of serial killers, or seeing dead family members, or taking baby elephants for a walk, or having discos for one in the middle of the ocean and so much more. I’m really proud of this record. It’s psychedelic in its truest most cerebral form."
Castles In Space will release The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volumes 1 & 2 on March 19, 2021.
