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"Henner reaches out to the listener directly...Rejuvenating and universal...Gorgeous."
The Quietus
"Meandering from emo rave to gamelan, Henner pours his heart into these elegant ambient soundscapes."
MOJO
Enigmatic UK producer Dylan Henner announces new album of deeply considered and choral-laced experimental ambient music Star Dream FM, said to be taped from a mysterious radio broadcast that plays his favourite memories from adolescence.
“Late one evening, I was listening to the radio alone at home. I couldn’t find the station I wanted, so I shifted the dial around for a while. Between frequencies, fading in and out of fidelity, I found a station I’d never heard before. To my amazement, the station was broadcasting my own memories. Memories from when I was seventeen. Some of the most formative and important moments of my life, alive on the air,” Dylan Henner’s self-penned mythology begins. “I called some friends and asked if they could find the same frequency, but no-one did. So, quickly as I could, I stuck a blank tape into my hi-fi and hit record. At some point I heard the jingle and the name of the station: Star Dream FM.”
Though (clearly) fictional, the backdrop to new album Star Dream FM represents a tactile canvas on which the record’s true meaning is painted. It is, through Henner’s now-characteristic employment of ambient-textured synthesis, marimba, digital choir, and processed voice, a study of late adolescence and the experience of being seventeen.
“Why seventeen? Because (in Western, 21st century culture at least) it is a unique time of fragility and self-realisation. A gateway between the joy and wonder of childhood and the heavy realities of adult life. A seventeen year old has almost formed their outlook, mindset, purpose, drive, but only as a hop away from childhood. It’s a challenging period, sure, but also a time of optimism, of excitement for a new life to begin in your own image.”
The result of this examination is a collection of meticulously constructed human-not-human compositions built from Henner’s mesmeric brand of desolate beauty. His immersive, storytelling range is broad, spanning from serene to cerebral, from powerful to uncanny. Henner references ambient and experimental music, chamber composition, the human voice, sound design, and field recordings, and wraps everything in the myth of his imaginary radio station Star Dream FM. Opening with the station’s sting and “I Borrowed my Dad's Car But We Had Nowhere To Go So We Drove Around Listening to Music All Night”, a disconnected, fuzzy DJ osmoses between non-human singing and floral synthesis that opens and flutters like fast-motion botany, eventually yielding a choral denouement of magisterial elegance.
Key moment “I Used To See Her On The Way Home from School and She Lit Up The Sky with her Beauty” marries heavily processed and near-wordless vocals with angelic harp swells, gently undulating bass frequencies, and digital string ensemble to mimic the glory and reverence of early church music. Which is, incidentally, a key influence to Henner’s practice.
Little is known about Dylan Henner, who landed on the ambient scene in 2020 with cassette releases for Phantom Limb, Belgian label Dauw, and cult tastemakers AD93. He barely promotes himself publicly, instead choosing to communicate through disarmingly poetic song titles. His debut album “The Invention of the Human” (AD93, 2020 - a recipient of BBC 6Music’s Album of the Year honours) responds to a set of philosophical questions - what exactly makes us human? What good is civilisation when there’s so much misery attached to it? How will technology affect humanity in the long run? In 2022, he released follow-up You Always Will Be on AD93, which traced the course of a single life from birth, to childhood, to adolescence, adulthood, parenthood, middle-age, old-age, and demise. He has also covered Raymond Scott, Terry Riley, Aphex Twin, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Su Tissue among numerous further projects.
Saw this live at LGW 24 in a church, 16th century bones under the floor crumbling under the deep bass. The vinyl gives the same amazing depth of sound. Love every minute of it. For the digital - on the go - I need better headphones. stolkblondiau
Wow.
My mate just sent me a link to Arreyed on the Battlefield after he caught just 30 seconds of it on the radio and managed to Shazam it….pretty lucky considering how bad Shazam can be. But he sent me the Spotify link to listen and soon I was about 1 minute in I knew I was going to hunt this down for a physical release.
Thank goodness I found it here as I love to buy through Bandcamp.
What an amazing piece of music. I cannot wait for the record to arrive so
I can listen to the whole album.
Richard Tovey
Working with just voice, piano and handmade cassette loops, the Chicago sound artist navigates heavy themes through a minimalist lens. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 2, 2021
