Dreamcolour position themselves as a free, spiritual collective that are as much in the space jazz tradition as acidic drone music, without really sounding definitively like anything but themselves. Inner Worship might seem like an ironic title for what is anything but internal: nine players simultaneously going off on drums, synths, saxophone, vocals, viola, guitars, electric, and upright bass. On top of that, the roster also numbers individuals who double-up: “vocals/soul”, “guitar/records”, and “drum/voodoo.”
“Soul” goes without saying. Maybe the “records” are behind those gushing wind sounds, and the “voodoo” is in charge of some of the mind meld that keeps the release an “inner” worship. I’d prefer to imagine this whole album came from someone sticking needles in a doll but more likely, “inner worship” is a good way of describing what nine people praying out-loud sounds like.
Dreamcolour seem to get off most (and getting off is clearly in the cards for music this free) by drifting along without any intentions of hitting that hard, climactic noise Satori. They choose instead to rove from one tinkering experiment into the next as organically as possible, sax grunts and piles of feedback mediating. And when the crew gets really interested in a massive drone or shuddering irresolution, someone tends to come in for the cleanup – the bass clearing swarming ants from a dead fly and scattering them off in every direction with a stolid, pedaled note. That’s the first side, called “Praying”.
If “Praying” comes off uninhibited, the B-side’s “Worshiping” is the somber meditation that inevitably precedes the final tract, “Repenting”. “Worshiping” is not trying to go as many places – where “Praying” asked for something, “Worshiping” is giving itself up into one viscous drone stream, which makes you feel like there’s something indulgent about the opening jam on “Repenting”, where lucid bits of funk and rock come in for the first time. Not for long. Everything we’ve known so far comes apart at the seams and swells into warm synth harmonies. Apparently this is how Dreamcolour remits sin.
