V/A :: The Sound of Dreams (Inspired by Breathing)

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The Sound of Dreams is everything I like about anthologies, a collection of very diverse personalities and idiosyncrasies expressing themselves in short performances, with plenty of guitars, strange but empathetic vocals (especially the chanting) and most of all, the sounds of birds and bugs.

Embrace the wooziness

The Sound of Dreams is a compilation album collated by Australian label Inspired by Breathing, featuring artists from around Australia and the world: Billy Elly, M G Barnes, Misolt, Bohdan Stupak, Call the Doctor, Miles Lee, Henry Bath, Benn DeMole, clint.E, Margee, TREM 77, Darraday and FΞIJOΛ. The compilation is an exploration of how external influences, such as sound, light, temperature, or texture, can subtly shift and transform the landscape of sleep itself, the phenomenon of dream incorporation caused by the way external stimuli can infiltrate and shape the dream state. There are plenty of birds throughout the tracks.

Each artist has engaged with this concept in diverse ways: some drawing on personal experiences, crafting pieces that capture sensations tied to memory or past dreams, while others have approached it with deliberate intent, creating audio environments designed to influence the dreaming mind. This project is not a retrospective of past dreams, but an exploration of how external influences can subtly shift and transform the landscape of sleep itself. Bottle up a dream. Embrace the wooziness, the non-linearity, the ups and downs, the twists and turns… the randomness.

Billy Elly :: “Vivid” (05:12) — Sleepy guitars soaring and beaming, increasingly interesting electric guitar sounds, very sparse and yet rich with harmonics and feedback in a small bottle. Halfway in the ticker starts, now we have a tempo beat thing going on, riddim in a small bottle, a nice little jam. On this track Billy Elly explores the unpredictable and ever-changing fluidity of dreams, asking how one might influence the flow of a dream. Some nights they feel tangible, almost real; other nights, they are so far-fetched that reality itself seems distant, tones shift and grow slightly abrasive, gently guiding the mind toward awareness and ultimately bringing the dreamer back to waking consciousness.

M G Barnes :: “The Space That Surrounds” (03:36) — Some birds in the woods, playing a guitar fingerstyle, joined by an electric cat, telling a story along with the birds, and perhaps building sand castles in the dark. Sometimes the electric guitars are doing most of the talking. Does one search for meaning, or simply let it play out? These feelings are captured through layered guitars and bending delays, a base layer of repetition acts as the constant normality within a dream, drenched in layers of un-meaning.

Misolt :: “Cicada” (04:44) — The orchestra fades up and warms in, the light comes up slowly, and the sunrise gets more glorious as it goes along. There is a slow subtle tension, a sustained single tone with edges, and of course the birds. Misolt is a contemporary electronic/dance music artist known for releasing albums like Lamos, Tengo, and Mara, with tracks featured on platforms like Spotify and Australian radio triple j Unearthed, creating atmospheric and often instrumental music for modern listeners. Midway the beat comes in and changes everything, the piano picks it up at a new tempo, now I am feeling sad and reflective.

Bohdan Stupak :: “dream alongside [electric] ocean” (05:09) — Opening on a keyboard-calm ocean, a layered electronic tribute to polyrhythmic minimalism, blending organic instruments with electronic textures, and jazz birds, inspired by the vast, immersive soundscapes of Become Ocean by John Luther Adams. Bohdan Stupak is a contemporary Ukrainian electronic/ambient musician known for creating atmospheric soundscapes using field recordings, software (SuperCollider), and instruments, often inspired by linguistics (Chomsky) and reflecting themes of war, hope, and the human condition in his work. His music blends ambient, dark ambient, and drone, sometimes incorporating neoclassical elements, exploring complex concepts of language and musical structure.

Call the Doctor :: “Lyrebird Lullaby Ft. Kiki Blu & The Meredith Supernatural Choir” (09:00) — I might hear birds or strange creatures, now a jazzy horn or reed, now a new bird is rather close. Soon lots of very small creatures wander by and add their odd electronic sounds, folks chanting, birds weaving. Dreams are often so tangible they can be mistaken for memory; this concept inspired the use of past recordings to create a soundscape that oscillates between present and past, inviting listeners to drift into a meditative sonic equilibrium.

Miles Lee :: “Charcoal Tide” (06:11) — Charcoal Tide seeks to capture both the pressure and release of emotions that defy language yet are deeply felt in times of loss. What I like best is that nothing is happening other than the tone sounding and fading in the echoes while the sunrise starts again for the ending, dreamy drifting and vacant, but the chords never stop, they may be slow and even diminish to near darkness. Shaped by suspended harmonies, expansive atmospheres, and grounding bass tones, a place of solace is created for listeners emerging from a blur of unreality, dreamlike days, and the slow rediscovery of hope.

Henry Bath :: “IWL” (04:39) — This track starts off with a discussion, guys talking about religion, which heads into a strange echoey dark place. Inspired by severed connections, IWL captures the lingering tension and unease that often follow us into sleep. This other guy is chanting stuff, bumping about, singing something over and over in a dreary tone, which starts to fade into darkness then jumps into higher intensity. I hear loopy angels and ghosts making backwards tones. Closure can be illusive when we’re faced with finding it on our own.

Benn DeMole :: “Ganggurrinymilla” (05:33) — Repetition morphs, calming at first, and always shifting. There could be a verb meaning ‘be dreaming,’ and also ‘nightmares.’ The sound of a dark night, a frame drum, humans bumping and stomping in great dance circles. One has something insightful to tell us: “I am a human animal & through my creative practices seek to connect to the flow of life to let my innate intuition guide me before my logical mind controls me. To undo or at least side-step some of my cultural conditioning so the spirits of the place I am in can express through me. This forest I am in, the rock I sit on beside this stream, the footpath below my feet, this vast planet we all live upon. The natural world so often unconsidered, ignored, I aim to give it some voice.” The track ends with bugs and birds.

clint.E :: “Only With Oranges Will Seeds Grow” (04:57) — I hear a nice slow tricky beat, a shuffle jam, soon add the loops of kids shouting playground distant, the infectious beat now jamin’, the guitars making strange noises, more happy kids, funky percussion, everything is feeling fun and refreshingly crazy. Reflecting the ever-shifting nature of the dream state, moving from the coherent to the inexplicable, Joy arises through curiosity, the senses provided with a wealth of opportunity. Inspired by waking life, “Only With Oranges Will Seeds Grow” is a playful and exploratory track built from soundscapes captured during travels to faraway places, and an electric guitar, played once but not forgotten.

Margee :: “In-Dream” (06:00) — Opening with an interesting old guy talking within a ticking electronic atmosphere. Soon percussive things are going on, things are cooking while other things come and go. I think I hear men talking but maybe not. Shimmering moments of light offer guidance amid the darkness, reflecting a journey not defined by its destination but by the lessons, emotions, and subtle transformations uncovered along the way. Themes of resilience and quiet determination emerge as the piece navigates symbolic obstacles, illuminating how movement through the unknown can reveal unexpected clarity and meaning. Margee is the musical project of Alexandre Gimard, a producer from the South of France, based in Grimaud.

TREM 77 :: “Glister (Underland Mix)” (04:14) — Textural glitter, inspired by nature, focused on subtle sounds, often featuring piano and electronics, releasing understated rainbows in the near dark, leading an auditory descent into underground spaces. This parallels the underland of human consciousness, an immersive soundscape that evokes subterranean mystery and opens a gateway to the dreams that dwell there. Inspired by the author Robert Macfarlane’s Underland, which combines scientific understanding with poetic description, making the invisible worlds tangible and resonant, blending natural history, mythology, and personal experience, taking readers from ancient burial sites and underground fungal networks to nuclear waste repositories, revealing how these hidden realms reflect our deepest fears, hopes, and legacies, a profound exploration of the world beneath our feet, delving into subterranean spaces like caves, glaciers, and catacombs to examine humanity’s relationship with darkness, history, geology, and the planet’s vast “deep time.”

Darraday :: “Grotto” (05:37) — Grotto is a textured, immersive track crafted from organic sounds — harmonium, voice, and earthy water pulses, evoking the quiet intelligence of the natural world. Inspired by plant medicine journeys, it guides listeners into a liminal space where inner and outer landscapes intertwine, much like the shifting terrain of dreams. The guys chant while the harmonium creates a distinct mystical feeling, swirling back into the colors of the strings and winds with electronic extras, while the percussion counts down bloomsday.

FΞIJOΛ :: “Nightbloom” (02:25) — Nighbloom is a lo-fi electronica drift through the hazy terrain of dreams, offering fleeting moments of beauty that bloom in darkness and vanish with the light and explores the unreachable and intangible, capturing the quiet ache of longing for something just beyond words. I imagine drifting colors in the desert darkness, whistling flute-chimes and metal tings, strange loops, and odd haunted voice fragments. The guys get together one more time to chant some heartfelt lyrics.

This album is everything I like about anthologies, a collection of very diverse personalities and idiosyncrasies expressing themselves in short performances, with plenty of guitars, strange but empathetic vocals (especially the chanting) and most of all, the sounds of birds and bugs.

The Sound of Dreams is available on Inspired by Breathing. [Bandcamp]