Stream: Ethan Gruska, ‘Reoccurring Dream’

Daiana Feuer on January 30th, 2017

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Ethan Gruska’s “Reoccuring Dream” utilizes sparse, accessible, instrumentation. It’s pretty much voice, guitar, hand percussion and, you know, strings and cello … Everyone has those lying around the living room, right? No, obviously, most people don’t. Nor do most people have stellar musicians like Blake Mills, Rob Moose, Gabe Noel and Barbara Gruska to play those instruments, imbuing a very intimate, so-close-it-feels-skin-timate, performance of a song with grand touches. That’s the beauty of “Reoccuring Dream.” It delicately delivers homemade and fancy feels simultaneously. Certainly that has something to do with Bob Clearmountain’s mixing and Tony Berg’s production. This is just one of 12 songs on Gruska’s debut album, “Slowmotionary,” which comes out via Sire Records on March 3. It’s been a while since the Gruska-sibling-propelled band the Belle Brigade went on indefinite hiatus, and it’s exciting to finally hear what Gruska’s been up to: “What I hope is that people can sense the vulnerability in the writing,” he says. “I didn’t want perfect. I wanted true. I wanted honest. I didn’t want to hide behind anything. That’s why it’s produced and arranged the way it is. It’s very barren at certain moments. These songs slow down time for me, which is why I called it ‘Slowmotionary.’ I needed to put myself out there musically and lyrically.”

||| Stream: “Reoccuring Dream”