Photo Credit: Amira Maxwell
Words by: David James Young
McDermitt, at first glance, isn’t exactly a place to write home about. The former mining town, with a population of approximately 80 people, straddles the borders of Nevada and Oregon. It’s mainly a place people pass through while traveling through on the interstate. Yet, in precisely this unremarkable scenario, the Oakland folk duo The Singer & The Songwriter stumbled upon one of the most unique and fascinating sights they’d ever encountered: an abandoned building beside a gas station, adorned with a sign that read, “DREAMS! THE DEAD! GHOST! FUTURE”.
“With that exact punctuation, too,” emphasizes Rachel Garcia – aka The Singer. “It was so particular, which was so evocative to us. We started thinking about the album we were working on using this exact framework—the idea of four different sections, four different seasons. The themes felt very pertinent to this set of songs. A lot of the time, you find yourself writing about death, disappointment, dreams that didn’t come true and dreams of a better future. The whole thing more or less organized itself around this sign and this title.”
And so, Dreams! The Dead! Ghost! Future took shape, organizing the eight songs the duo had been working on at New Monkey Studios, the Van Nuys space famously associated with the late, great Elliott Smith. With the addition of four new instrumental overtures penned by Thu Tran—aka The Songwriter—the new album evolved into the duo’s most accomplished and fully-realized effort to date. Even before this fateful discovery, Garcia and Tran had sensed that this album would be different to their previous releases.
“This is very much an album of honing in on folk music,” Tran tells CONE. “When we went into this record, we’d come off three-and-a-half years of nonstop touring. Just the two of us, nothing more than a guitar and a voice on stage. People would come up to us after we’d played, wanting to buy a record, and I remember hearing more than once that they wanted to buy an album that sounded the most like what they’d seen tonight. Our previous albums [2014’s What a Difference a Melody Makes and 2023’s In the Bleak Midwinter] had a bit of an asterisk. There were some stripped back songs, but also a lot of full-band stuff. This time, we really wanted to capture the intimacy more. The songs and the stories are the center spotlight.”
The stories within the songs on the album are among the most direct and personal the duo has ever composed in their decade-plus of music-making— a remarkable achievement for an act known for wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Perhaps the most striking story is on “Over Easy,” the first of two songs in The Dead! section of the album. Over a quaint, swaying guitar line, Garcia delivers what may be her finest recorded vocal performance to date. On the track, she reflects on visions of her estranged father, coming face-to-face with the ghost of her past. Ultimately, she confronts the realization that you can grapple with ghosts even while the person is still alive.
“My dad is still living, but it’s a pretty strained relationship,” Garcia explains. “Ever since we started playing that song, I have gotten such an outpouring of messages about it and how much it means to people. It’s fascinating that the more vulnerable and more specific about your own life you get when you’re making music, the more listeners seem to connect to it. It’s a really wild thing. The song kind of takes on its own life at that point. You send it off on a journey, almost to the point where you can no longer trace it.”
Tran chimes in, reflecting on the emotional intensity of their creative process. “There’s a certain kind of excruciating intimacy that comes with making this kind of music,” the songwriter explains. “You get constricted and nervous, even if it’s just the other person in the room. I’ve known Rachel for 18 years, and my hands still shake every time I play her something new I’ve written on the guitar. You’re there just hoping whatever collection of ideas that you’ve assembled for yourself have something interesting in there. You don’t want to bring in something that’s absolute garbage!”
Rest assured, Dreams! The Dead! Ghost! Future is as far from “absolute garbage” as you can get. Amid the pop-star excess of albums like Charli XCX’s Brat and the ornate grandeur of albums like Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, the duo’s project stands out as one of the quietest albums of 2024, yet also one of the most profound. The Singer & The Songwriter have created an album with such starkness and breathy intimacy that it demands your undivided attention. They hope that those who make the effort to engage deeply with the project will find it richly rewarding.
“I hope that our music can name certain observations or feelings—things that, perhaps, we otherwise don’t have an articulation for,” says Garcia. “That feels like the job of a folk musician. You’re there to bear witness, and you’re there to be a storyteller. If we’re naming a feeling of heartbreak, or the loss of something with a parent, or some other strange moment, I hope people are able to see their experience reflected back to them in a way that’s palatable.”
Tran agrees, likening his own aspirations to a private revolution. “When I was younger, the desire was to go as big as possible – billions of people listening, going all over the world with my music,” he reflects. “For us at this point, though, I want the reaction to feel small. What I mean by that is that I hope this record feels like a best friend providing comfort—that someone might feel as though this record was made just for them. When they’re listening, I also want them to feel like they’re being listened to.”