Genre:  Abstract / Field Recordings / Contemporary Classical / Experimental

01 The City (Map 1)
02 The Hypnotist
03 The White Gloves
04 The City (Map 2)
05 Blue Arcana
06 Tangerine Pt. I
07 Tangerine Pt. II
08 Tangerine Pt. III
09 Tangerine Pt. IV
10 Tangerine Pt. V
11 Morning Call
12 Exit Music

Joe Frawley is one of the more unique and educated individuals to enter the world of experimental music in some time.  In addition to the Universities of Connecticut and Exeter (UK), Joe has also attended Boston's renowned Berklee College of Music.  His goal is to combine personal contemporary piano compositions with fields recordings and vocal samples.  Unlike most field recordings artists, Joe's music falls far closer to the world of acoustic ambient music than the musique concrete / noise world.  Some could even call this music dream-like enough to have qualities of the shoegaze world within it, but as far as music genre definitions go, it strays far into the ambient territory.

Frawley's take on acoustic ambient music is highly scientific.  His focus is towards the human subconscious and utilizing these voice samples and changing their context to affect what is going on in the listener's brain and mood.  The music paired to them is the less important part it seems, merely being a suggestive influence to lean the listener's mood into a certain territory.  These underlying scientific musical textures pair up with the vocal anomalies to create somewhat of a storyline, which the aritst himself admittedly tries to stray from.  The resulting music tends to come out largely relaxed, a conscious dreamstate that is actually somewhat uncomfortable at first to fall into.  Frawley's music isn't an easy descent.  What ends up happening is the insertion of what feels like false memories.  You relax, allow the music to take hold of your imagination, and rather than being led softly through a world of intimate textures and soft lulls, you are led astray.  You weaken yourself to that state of thought and end up contemplating the phrases that come out of the music.  You hear an interesting word here or there, and it completely changes the thought pattern that is currently racing through your mind.  Of course, that's largely the part of taking voice samples and recontextualizing them, but the journey somehow ends up being rough in a very minimal way of thinking.  But that was only my personal journey through A Book of Dreams.

If you simply allow your brain to connect with the music without trying to understand the words or contemplate the current meaning of the song, you can easily get lost in a world of harmony and beauty.  You can float along the edges of your world and allow the words to plug themselves into your own personal conscience and what results will be infinitely varying for every listener.  The album's title is “A Book of Dreams” for a reason.  There isn't simply one story within the aural walls of this release.  In fact, everyone's story is included here.  All of the samples here will affect every listener in a different way, regardless of the suggestive nature of the piano melodies underneath.  Your journey will not be the same as another's, and so this giant tome of subconscious thought is truly a gift to music lovers all across the world of ambient.