Track of the Day: Dirty Dreamer - 'Piano 39'

Dublin ambient group Dirty Dreamer grapple with hard truths on their emotion-driven new single ‘Piano 39’.

The single arrived last Friday with the news that the trio’s debut album The Everyday In Bloom will be released on April 8th, for Fans of Talos, The National and Come On Live Long.

Guided by a mellow piano line and accompanied by singer Louise Gaffney’s evocatively layered vocals, the track bursts into life in its second verse. A gliding guitar line evokes memories of late-night drives, while lyrically the track details artist’s tendencies to avert their eyes in the face of hard truths.

'Piano 39' ultimately draws attention to how much of life’s joys can be missed when you don't take a moment to look around.

“‘Piano 39’ was one of those tracks that almost wrote itself," Louise Gaffney of Dirty Dreamer says. "Daithí started quietly humming a gorgeous melody while jamming a middle section. In between chords I managed to hit the mic so it swung around on the stand and just caught it as he was coming up with it.

"That little passing moment became the hook. The final verse is trying to describe one of those shiny moments of clarity you can have at random when you notice an everyday moment of beauty and you are completely pulled out of yourself”.

Dirty Dreamer was first founded in 2018 after its members, Louise Gaffney, Daithí O'Connor and Ken McCabe, had spent the previous number of years playing together as part of Choice-nominated electro-folk outfit Come On Live Long.

By combining the use of synths, electric guitar, processed vocals, distorted beats and live drums, Dirty Dreamer blend a common love for all things electronic with live instrumentation to attain a sound that is both raw and melodically crafted.

The band's debut single ‘Evaporate’ was shared in 2019, which was quickly followed by a self-titled EP. Recorded in The Meadow studio in Wicklow, the four-track project was born of a free form approach to making music, as songs emerged from months of experimenting with new sounds and blending ambient electronica with more traditional components of classical composition.

The project was followed in 2020 by two singles, ‘Air To Breathe’ and ‘Electric Sleep’.

‘Piano 39’ is the first single from Dirty Dreamer’s debut album. Leaning on the band's more analogue tendencies, The Everyday In Bloom is the outfit’s most acoustic creation to date and features the unique aesthetic of its tape-recorded processing.

Listen the new single below: