Time isn’t sand slipping through your fingers. It’s more like a river—a “Dream River”, perhaps—carving out canyons, forging paths, and drowning things you thought would always stay afloat. Natalie Bouloudis understands this in her bones, if her latest single is anything to go by. Her voice doesn’t just sing; it commands time itself, bending it in ways that leave you wondering if you’ve heard something ancient or yet to be born.
“Dream River” flows (forgive the obvious connection, but it does) with gothic folk currents, pulling you deep with brooding drums from Hannah Stacey that beat like a soul’s propeller, propelling the narrative forward. Luke Waterfield isn’t interested in being “lovely”. His strings don’t weep, they wail—part joy, part anguish, like calling out to something you might not want coming back. Maybe a memory.
Lyrically, Bouloudis takes you somewhere uncomfortable, yet familiar. Like walking through an attic full of unfinished diaries or staring at an old clock that always seems like it’s five minutes ahead, taunting your lateness. Her words twist, offering poetic punches about love, loss, and the slow march of time—because let’s face it, no one’s running here.
Luke Novak’s bass sits solid underneath this swirl, like a riverbed under the current—constantly there, but rarely noticed until the water pools and you’re forced to reckon with it.
There’s something cinematic here, like a forgotten Tarkovsky film or those strange paintings where the faces are just skulls with hats on them. Dark, reflective, yet somehow full of life painstakingly twisted out of the shadows.
When the song ends, you’re left wondering: can we ever outrun the river, or are we all just getting washed downstream?
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