FRESH BAKED
in NYC
Opsvik & Jennings
A Dream I Used To Remember
2009 | Loyal Family
A-

Sometimes a perfectly good pop song can be ruined by a singer. Whether it’s a lack of talent, distracting quirkiness, or oblivious egomania, a crap singer can completely diminish the work of his bandmates. Opsvik & Jennings have handily avoided this pitfall by eliminating all that unnecessary singing. According to their website, the New York-via-Norway-and-Oklahoma duo started off a few years ago making bleepy-bloopy electronic music. They’ve released two albums in this style, 2005’s Fløyel Files and 2007’s Commuter Anthems. But their third and newest album, A Dream I Used To Remember, is full of real, organic-sounding instruments, and is firmly couched in the indie/folk idiom.

The duo seems to have worked hard to create an album that could be mistaken for one long piece of music. It flows in a way that’s natural and, as the title suggests, dreamy. The delicate opening title track feels like an outtake from Bjork’s soundtrack to Dancer in the Dark and is immediately followed by “Canada,” an easygoing alt-country number with some twangy Chet Atkins-style guitar. From there, the album takes a turn toward chamber pop-folk in the vein of Sufjan Stevens or Neutral Milk Hotel, with hints of banjo, choruses of cooing voices, horn sections, and layered, textural ambience up the wazoo.
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