The opening seconds of Brandon Seabrook's newest album - in the track "Name Dropping is the Lowest Form of Conversation (Waltz)" - feature a tranquil celeste that, to folks of a certain age, might recall the opening shot of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, where music director Johnny Coata play that instrument while a camera panned across a toy village right before he switched to piano and the show's namesake made his entrance. Here, those twinkly notes last just long enough to create a mood that quickly turns mysterious when Seabrook begins playing some arpeggiated chords. The scene is dreamlike, not blissful but not nightmarish either. It's could be a soundtrack for low level anxiety dream. Or maybe that's what Seabrook had in mind with the title Hellbent Daydream.
Moments occur throughout the album when the instrumentation plays tricks on the ears. There's no contra-bass clarinet on the album, but a reedy screech occurs during "Namedropping" which must be from coming bassist Henry Fraser. Violinist Erica Dicker's pizzicato playing complements Seabrook's banjo to the extent that they sometimes blend into one sound. Elias Stemseder, the fourth member of the band, is responsible for a good deal off the settings with piano and keyboards.
For what seems on paper like a group with certain sonic limitations, the quartet changes shape constantly throughout the album. "Bespattered Bygones" sounds rather Appalachian folk initially, Seabrook having switched to banjo. But Stemseder's keys come off like a synthetic calliope, dragging things back to the Big City. During the title track, Seabrook reprises the riff from the "Namedropping" but this time, he pairs it with an augmented chord, eventually overdubbing a sea of guitars that create a wash of sound.
A Zorn-like brand of quick cuts occurrs during "I'm a Nightmare and You Know It" and "Existential Banger Infinite Ceiling," with so much happening, from fast flashes of trebly guitar plunks to droning, almost chamber piece drones. "The Arkansas Tattler" might be the least zany of the titles but it plays on the folk classic "The Arkansas Traveler" (a recurring melody heard in Warner Brothers cartoons), giving Dicker and Stemseder a jaunty melody before Fraser unpacks a solid, flowing solo. It's notable that the microphone placement captures the visceral sound of Fraser in a room, plucking the strings, with a background sound that almost comes off like a ghostly bit of brushes on a snare. As he proceeds, his solo becomes engulfed in the swell of keyboards and strings, again fusing electric and acoustic sounds together to create something bigger than both. Ultimately, it feels dreamy too, in the best way.
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