Sally Wolfdreamer - Dissected

The ambient electronica project known as Sally Wolfdreamer was born by the mind of James Mitchell, a musician who got the name off of a local clairvoyant. His history with music began with him playing drums in multiple bands, including the post-rock project Double Handsome Dragons. Though drums were his forte for quite some time, he had always dabbled in electronic music. Thus, Sally Wolfdreamer was born. Fusing all his musical interests - from post-rock to hardcore, D'n'B to experimental beatmakers - Wolfdreamer's second EP "Dissected" has landed. 



I will start the review of "Dissected" by speaking of the first song that caught my attention, and that is 'Black Phillip'. Being that I love the evil goat from the hit horror film The VVitch and that this song shares the name with the animal, it was an obvious starting point for me. Whether or not the song is actually based off of Black Phillip is an entirely different subject; anyway, what I got my hands on here was a well put together track that would fit right in the witch house scene: dragging beats, walls of noise, and a ton of bass. While not the cleanest song in terms of production value, I still appreciated every sound that came out of it.

Jumping back to the beginning of the EP, 'Lobo' is the introductory track on the five-track release but it didn't quite sit well with me. Beats that sound as if they're stuttering over one another that began at the fifty-eight second mark made the song sound as if it were going through a seizure. I think the attempt was to draw from the glitch scene, but I just couldn't wrap my head around what was going on. What's nice about the track, however, is that both the beginning and the ending of it are decent ambient electronic pieces.

Jumping over the already previously covered 'Black Phillip' and into 'Buried Alive' found me in chillout territory. Despite the name of the song, the first minute or so of it had me feeling as if I were floating mid-air. The structure slowly changes past the one-minute mark as atmospheric synths fill in a void, and we're thrust into a electronica charged ballad. I once again found myself hearing the pop of the percussion led bass dominating in comparison to the rest of the track; it was detracting, but not horrid. The final section of the song contains a wonderful synth-wall of bliss. 

I feel as if both 'Kronole' and 'Kunicki' go hand-in-hand with one another as they both contain some elements of glitch with similarly paced beats. My one main complaint still stood with these songs, however, as I felt as if the bass was overpowering the rest of the music within the track. I also felt as if the sudden stop at the end of Kunicki was a bit underwhelming, but the rest of the track was well made.

So, Sally Wolfdreamer's second EP comes to an end. What I am loving about the project right now is Wolfdreamer's ability to experiment with so many genres while maintaining a floaty and atmospheric beat the entire time. I do think that there's a problem with the bass drastically overtaking some of the other elements in the song; there were times when I turned down the volume on my headphones to see if that would help, but then the other notes were too low while the bass sounded normal. If Wolfdreamer can fix that issue than I think they'd be better off. Nonetheless, for now, Wolfdreamer has a good release on their hands. 6.5 out of 10! 

This review was commissioned through our Ko-fi page.
Apr 10 2021