Dreams Of Speaking, by Daniel Berkman

Dreams Of Speaking

by Daniel Berkman

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Full Digital Discography

33

releases

Get all 33 Daniel Berkman releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Four Dance Pieces, Broke(n), Feel For Steel, A Cello's Lament, Reverence, Live at Wisdome, The Healer, Ten-Year Forecast 2021, and 25 more. , and , .

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1.	In From The Forest 04:05	buy track
2.	Dreams Of Speaking 04:36	buy track
3.	Mute Dream 03:44	buy track
4.	Face To Face 04:08 video	buy track
5.	Time Will Tell 07:22	buy track
6.	Alternate Endings 02:34	buy track
7.	Schmaltz Waltz 02:52	buy track
8.	The Dream 04:00	buy track
9.	Take A Picture 03:21	buy track

about

Dreams Of Speaking (2008) was the last modern dance work I composed for choreographer Heidi Schweiker, the first two being Come Rain and Dust Collective.
Unlike it’s abstract predecessors, Dreams Of Speaking has acoustic guitar as it’s focal point and the added mellotrons, glockenspiels and drums give it a moody bluesy proggy feel.

It’s been about 10 years since I’d given this work a good listen and throughout that time I always thought I’d kinda thrown the work together, like a collage, made with ingredients from other projects but without the precision of the previous works, more off the cuff, dreamy.

Also, there were several reject tracks that upon revisiting prompted me to put together a track list consisting of the 5 tracks of the original dance work plus the additional 4 reject tracks.
I realized I was onto something really special.

Heidi’s enigmatic title was also fodder for the process. I dug the ambiguity. I could go more with the feeling of the words rather than cling to any literal meaning. But, as the track list was built, I could see a sort of structure revealing itself. For instance, as I chose names for the individual tracks I was looking at dreaming and speaking in more literal terms and how it related to the mood of the album.
What also came up for me was the dreamy quality of life and the inevitability of death.

"Take A Picture" was a complete song composed during the time of the making of "Dreams..." and the subject alluding to death seemed to color it's overall mood and meaning.

This is also my vocal debut. Of all my current releases, I have yet to frame myself as a singer and yet I've been actively composing and recording songs for over 40 years.
This period of my output marked my return to singing and accompanying myself on acoustic guitar.

"Face To Face" was originally recorded first using a scratch track of me playing the two-chord guitar part and singing gibberish over it.
My vocals were quiet enough yet present enough that I kept it on the original dance soundtrack recording. But, for years certain words seemed to stick, like "you can finally lay your body down" or "face to face with who you are", you know, words that just surface when you're singing a rough scratch track.
I decided a couple of months ago to go ahead and fill in those gaps and finally write a lyric to make it a stand alone song.

Overall, I am pleased with this album and as always proud of the work I did with Heidi Schweiker who's choreography and vision was an integral part of the music making process.

As these works were milestones in my early dance music career, I hope,
as they are given new life, that listeners may enjoy them for years to come.

-Daniel Berkman (2019)

credits

released October 31, 2019

Music composed and performed by Daniel Berkman
Cover Art by Daniel Berkman
Sounds: acoustic guitar, voice, glockenspiel, mellotron, laptop

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about

Daniel Berkman San Francisco, California

Daniel Berkman is a Bay Area electronic musician, composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, looper and innovator of the Kora (a 21-stringed harp-lute from West Africa) and it's modern counterpart, the Gravikord.
Daniel composes for dance, film, instrumental, vocal and also has recordings under his electronic music moniker Colfax.
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