Kevin Bronson on September 19th, 2019

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“Heaver than metal and lighter than air.”

That’s how the music from the new duo Night Dreamer comes advertised, and it’s apt. It’s dream-pop that imagines guitar pedal-boards experiencing nightmares, or music from the underbelly of Kubrick’s Monolith, or Phantogram’s black metal side project.

It’s the work of two Orange County natives — Jeff Schroeder, guitarist in the Smashing Pumpkins since 2007, and Mindy Song, keyboardist in the L.A. indie-rock band Wam Dingis. Night Dreamer’s debut EP, “Treasure,” was recorded at the Cave Studio in L.A. with another guy who knows his guitar textures, Josiah Mazzaschi.

Schroeder, of course, has been shaping soundscapes with his guitar since his days in Southern California popgazers the Lassie Foundation. Song, trained on piano and violin as youth, learned guitar, drums and music production before joining Wam Dingis. “For a long time I was in the orchestra environment, but once I found punk and post-punk, I realized I never wanted to be a concert violinist,” she says.

The pair met in 2015 and found some creative chemistry. “In past situations, my role would be to come up with riffs or guitar parts and bring them to the band, and the singer would complete it from there,” Schroeder explains. “With Mindy, we both have very different skill sets, but we’re able to work together and create something new out of that. She’s an amazing musician and has this voice where she can sing really pretty but also make it really gritty sometimes, and I love the way that sound melds with my guitar.”

They also share a larger conceptual bent. Inspirations on the EP include Gary Shteyngart’s dystopian fiction and Miranda July’s idiosyncratic study of human connection. “Mindy and I both have a larger artistic interest that influences a lot of our ideas,” Schroeder says, “and will definitely play into how we integrate music and art and moving images down the road.”

If Schroeder’s guitar solo on the first single “Another Life” doesn’t give you goosebumps, there is Song’s opaque but foreboding chorus: “I think it’s real, but can’t be sure / Don’t know where we’re going / Whether weed or chemical / AI’s taking over home.”

The video was directed by John Isberg and filmed in an abandoned Air Force base. The EP is out Oct. 11.

||| Watch: The video for “Another Life”

||| Stream: “Treasure” in its entirety