Oliver Tank - Dreams

By: Joel Frieders

Tom sent me a bandcamp link a week or so ago and prefaced it by saying something like it's 'James Blake meets Band of Horses' or some shit like that. Of course, I take Tom's music recommendations seriously, but I don't tell him, because that might encourage him to tell other people first and that would make me the sadz bro bro. Plus, there's nothing worse than a hipster with confidence. And I am not an enabler bro.

So I hit play while working on some chemical inventory at the pharmacy, and pretty soon I was sketching the word nifedipine on my trapper keeper in a pharmaceutical daydream about anal fissure treatments and free ground shipping. Oliver Tank is a dreamy prescription in a hectic world of invoices and packing slips, where it isn't always easy to find, let alone take, the pill of chill.

The minimal production is more air than solid, and the layered vocals more ethereal than three dimensional. It's a fucking antigravity stroll through space without all the clunky gear and horrible helmet hair bro. It's a slow dance during a street riot and it's probably one of my favorite ways to decompress now that I'm unable to utilize illegal substances to find a calming balance when slow masturbation isn't an option.

Oliver Tank doesn't really sound like James Blake though, because for one, it hasn't gotten on my nerves yet, and I'm pretty sure it won't turn into a descriptive term for a genre that shouldn't exist in the first place. It's like R&B without the slacks, choosing rather to remain comfortable in basketball shorts and house shoes. It's electro in that it's produced electronically, yes, but it has all the purity of an organic guacamole that replaces the aguacate with song writing that's just as delicious.

Dreams doesn't rely on the technology to formulate substance, rather it uses said technology to enhance said substance past just awesome song creation into a personal and intellectually erotic conversation between heart and loins.

Yes, I just typed that.

If you're looking for an album to knock you down a few pegs, back into the comfortably inspired, give ol Oliver Tank's Dreams a listen.

But don't hate me when you find yourself slow dancing with a drape and expecting the fucking drape to dip you bro bro. Drapes don't dip, they droop bro bro.