A sad and beautiful work

Though it does indeed seem to veer from the album's general mystic, ambient-electronica feel, the calm and repetitive Sparklehorse song "Sad and Beautiful World" captures the spirit of the album. Most of the songs consist of very depressing ideas, but capture them in some of the loveliest melodies put on an album. "Dreamworld: Essential Late Night Listening" scoops a handful of these types of songs and puts them together in this one compilation. Artists spanning the 90's supply the album's fifteen tracks, creating an album which, despite its diversity, has been widely overlooked in favor of other collections, like the copycat Ultra Chilled collections.

Our introduction to Dreamworld is inimitable, beginning with French DJ Tricky's 1995 trip-hop work. "Hell Is Around the Corner" is a slow constantly flowing rap, backgrounded with the echo of his voice, a female vocalist, and the sound of each scratch in his record, occasionally punctuated by a frighteningly melodious moan, supposedly of love rock legend Isaac Hayes. Belgian ambient pop band Hooverphonic keeps the pace with their signature song, "2 Wicky". Following it come songs from the three big "M"s of electronica: Massive Attack, Morcheeba, and Moby, and although none of these songs are their best, as one would expect from such veterans as these the songs fail to disappoint.

One of the real gems of the album is Pigeonhed's "The Full Sentence". Anyone who has heard their or Lo Fidelity All-Star's "Battleflag" knows that lead vocalist Shawn Smith can sing some dark, pulse-pounding lyrics. Here, he reverts to a lovely soprano voice which serves as the centerpiece to an extremely beautiful, yet creepy song. Olive's "You're Not Alone" is another dark, haunting melody, spiced by beautiful vocals and a tune that you couldn't get out of your head with a screwdriver. Track 11 serves up Dead Can Dance's "Host of Seraphim" which sets the album at its acme by combining the haunting ambience of a pipe organ with beautiful incoherent lyrics.

As the album comes to a close, the audience is treated to a very Indian melody by Sheila Chandra, a beautiful electronic remake of a Guns N Roses classic, and a piece by Spiritualized, before reaching the track which I feel sums up the entire album. It's an utter travesty that this album is so undercovered. Maybe it's a result of word of mouth. Calling this a gothic album is doing both you and the album a great disservice. While it has a very haunting air to it, and seems to focus to a great degree on loneliness and being trapped within one's own mind, this does not make it any more Gothic than a David Lynch film. This is a collection of ambience for the listener who doesn't want to be forcefed, but is unwilling to down mere fluff. A dream can be defined as a state of mind marked by abstraction or release from reality, or something notable for its beauty or excellence. This album is what it says it is: a world of dreams.

Still A Great Compilation

Even with the flood of "chill" cds being released, this is still the one I play the most... just wish there was a follow up cd just as excellent as this one.

You can't go wrong

I'm a manager in a large music store chain and I hear a lot of music, but this is one of the best cd's I've heard in years. The slow, seductive beats of this album truly make it an 'essential' buy. This cd is constantly in my stereo no matter where I'm at or what I'm doing. I've convinced several of my friends to buy this cd plus some from the artists featured like Tricky, Moby and Morcheeba since I've had it. This is a great cd.