Matthew Dear Returns To Ghostly With ‘Dizzy’, A Love Song For The Hours Before Dawn
In Matthew Dear’s telling, ‘Dizzy’ takes place on a dark road, with the smell of cooling asphalt in the air and someone caught between leaving and going back to the person they love. The single came out on Ghostly International on 11th November. Dear wrote it in the hours between midnight and dawn, when he says it’s easier to let a different side of himself take over.
“There is a time of night, somewhere between midnight and dawn, when most people are asleep. That’s when I’ve made some of my favorite music,” Dear says. “‘Dizzy’ was born in that space.”
There’s a physical unease to the song. Buzzing riffs sit against distorted kicks with a touch of Depeche Mode, while Dear’s low voice makes the whole thing feel uncomfortably close. The drums keep moving as the narrator goes over the same decision. That tension gives the love song its shape.
It’s a sound that reaches back to 2010’s ‘Black City’, where Dear’s baritone and the precision of his Detroit techno production gave his songs an edge. By 2018’s ‘Bunny’, that voice was sharing space with Tegan and Sara on ‘Bad Ones’. The releases since have included the previously shelved ‘Preacher’s Sigh & Potion’ and 2022’s ‘Talking Sleep’. Earlier this year, he put out ‘New Drug’ and ‘Head In The Clouds’ on France’s Salon Records.
Dear wrote, produced and performed ‘Dizzy’ himself. Scott Lake mixed and mastered it at Subterranean Sound Studios. It’s a crowded sound for a song set on an empty road, and the closeness of Dear’s voice makes it feel like you’re hearing the thought he keeps coming back to.
