This track slides in sideways, catching you off guard with its woozy, 60s psychedelic shimmer. Straight out of San Francisco, Michellar crafts a sound here that feels instantly familiar – sun-dapped and swirling – yet underneath, something’s deeply unsettled. It’s the sonic equivalent of walking into a brightly lit room only to realise the walls are slowly closing in.
Because “Dreaming” isn’t about fluffy clouds or easy escapes. Oh no. This is the jagged-edged dreamscape you wander after a profound betrayal rips the floorboards out from under you. Michellar maps out that harrowing territory where waking thoughts and nightmare logic bleed together, offering no exit hatch, just a loop of mental anguish and inescapable replays. The theme digs deep into that powerlessness, that feeling of being led into a decaying void by promises that turned out to be mere vapour.
Michellar’s vocals carry this beautifully – there’s a clarity, yes, but it’s threaded with a profound weariness, the sound of someone navigating a collapsing internal world. It’s compelling. And the guitar work… it winds through the track like ivy reclaiming an abandoned house. Clean, present, yet somehow echoing that sense of things falling irrevocably apart. Its specific tone snagged a weird connection for me – the slightly metallic scent of old film reels stored in a neglected basement corner. A smell of trapped light and decaying stories, perhaps? Fleeting thought, but it lingered.
This isn’t passive background haze. “Dreaming” pulls you into its specific vortex of confusion and disillusionment. You feel the pressure, the lack of solid ground, the spectral echo of broken trust hanging in the reverb. It’s a potent, slightly destabilizing spell Michellar casts, taking that recognizable retro sound and twisting it into a mirror for profound emotional distress. It certainly sticks with you, that peculiar feeling of being utterly lost right where everyone can see you.
What happens when the only place left to run is the labyrinth designed by the one who broke the world?
Follow Michellar on Website, Bandcamp, Instagram, Facebook
