Lorelei Dreaming - Future Fables

Chicago-based artist Laura Bienz, aka Lorelei Dreaming, has recently released her sophomore album “Future Fables”. Put together after several years of touring alongside fellow dark electronic luminaries (such as Velvet Acid Christ, Covenant, Stabbing Westward and more) in support of her St. Griselda (of Angelspit fame) produced debut “Banshee”, this release pushes the boundaries of what fans might expect. It finds her delving into more varied sonic territory then her first release and shows off a more melodic side.

Lush sound design is found throughout all of the tracks, equally channeling futurepop, synthwave, and modern dance music to create a hybridized sound that will appease all but the most particular of fans of the respective genres. Generally, most songs have a light and airy atmosphere, yet they still manage to show a powerful rawness through strong vocal performances. The songs are complicated, layered, and progressive; moving with an atmospheric tug and pull of different sounds and energies, providing an excellent soundscape for Lorelei to tell her stories through her intimately reflective lyrics. The release in general has a very ethereal quality to it, with some of the sound design delving into almost ambient territories giving the album a persistent quality of haunting beauty, with the music and vocals having an emotive and brooding character to them.

Despite the obvious layers of processing on the vocals, which make them blend nicely with the entirely electronic musical background, there’s a very organic quality that comes across as heartwarming and soulful. Her actual singing is some of the best she’s ever done, commanding but emotively whimsical, often perfectly matching the wispy and shifting instrumental compositions. Honestly, the only real complaint I’d have would be that she often sticks to predictable vocal patterns throughout most of the album. I think if she put more dynamism into the vocals it’d really step up the game of an already powerfully presented vocal performance and further show off her naturally beautiful tone.

Overall the release is a true maturation of her sound, with every song sounding like it was intimately refined to convey a perfect sonic journey. And despite the warm atmospheric nature to the album, it still packs some solid dancefloor numbers that will keep your foot tapping and ears buzzing with delight as the huge dance sounds and stomping drums keep you engaged from beginning to end, which will please fans of her debut album which had a bit more of a harder industrial dance quality then this one does.  

Personally, I found the remix portion of the album to be a bit lackluster. The remix she provided was the one standout being by far one of the strongest tracks on the album. Bold, dark, layered, and strongly composed it rivals some of the original tracks on the album in quality and repeatability. Yet somehow the rest of the songs by the other artists ranged from somewhat passable to unnecessary leftfield side steps; none of them caught my attention for future listens. If the album ended right after her own remix of Aporia, and I didn’t have to take into consideration material by other artists, I probably would have given the album a higher review score. Overall though, and especially if you just listen to the first half of her own content, this is a strong sophomore release that shows a great deal of maturity and growth, and refinement of sound.