The world Luwayne Glass (otherwise known as Dreamcrusher) sees is reflected in their art: deafeningly loud, unthinkably grim and relentlessly dreary. Their new video for “Codeine Eyes” a track off Dreamcrusher’s Quid Pro Quo EP, which dropped last month on Fire Talk Records, is an unsettling visualization of a nihilist gender non-conformist’s isolation in a society of heads in the sand. The camera follows an all-black-clad Glass, in slow-motion, through a barren wood, all leaves removed from the trees and lying dead and crumpled on the forest floor and being stepped on in apathetic disregard. Characteristic of Glass, they jump and flail wildly among the scenery (if you’ve ever seen a Dreamcrusher set, you know their tendencies towards sporadic thrashing).
The video, conceptualized by Glass, and made by Ali Cengiz and Mark Demolar, is loaded with conflict, portraying an affinity for nature, but an infertile nature; a comfort in solitude, but a lonely one. The audio itself is scary. Almost unbearable feedback immediately grips your spine and digs its nails in, while heavier-than-heavy electronics pound away like bricks against your temples. A moody beat is introduced, opening for Glass’ reverberated shoutings, dooming up the place all the more, with their bleak repetitions, “It’s a trap / systems/symptoms lie therein / codeine eyes see a world made of shit.” The vocals and beat cut out and the static intensifies as the visuals shift to a waterfall with a swarm of fleas in the foreground, the sun glaring through the treetops in a foggy daze. The camera angles become more distant, pinpointing Glass as an isolated figure lost in the enormity of the woods.
