Last month marked the release of Dreamer Awake, Rachel Sermanni‘s fourth solo album and her first since 2019’s ‘folk noir’ delight, So It Turns. Dreamer Awake was also a Featured Album of the Month on Folk Radio. Thomas Blake described as the sound of a spectacularly gifted songwriter growing personally and artistically in the face of pain and difficulty.
Rachel has just shared a documentary on the making of the album in which she talks about the changes she went through that led to the making of the album and how having a child led her on a deeper exploration of womanhood.
There are far too many beautiful moments to mention here, and I hate to spoil the experience for you, but I love how Rachel talks about music – and how it’s got to be a conceptual experience. This an album that rewards repeat listens, not just for what additional layers it may musically reveal but also the intent that sits behind the album encourages positivity…as she says below:
Wake UP and begin dreaming a new way through this world.
Writing to her fans about the album and what it meant to her personally, Rachel shared:
I’m so proud of all the things I’ve made over the last decade or more. But I do feel an extra glow for this one. Getting older and having babies and stuff has only made the process of creation only more vital and ever more deep and complex. I’m so grateful for what my ‘mothering years’ are bringing me. The maiden years – travel, tour, whimsy, confusion, working only for myself – were blessed and mighty fun but I’m grateful to be in a new turning and to get to reflect all of it in this new album. Thank you for being part of it.
She adds:
The undercurrent prayer of Dreamer Awake is in the title. Wake UP and begin dreaming a new way through this world. This world needs us to be alert with our intuition and earth-bound-ness, to shift and sift through the shit of what we take to be ‘the real world’, to realign, to get fierce and bring about BIG change for a wonderful future. It’s a call to take responsibility for ourselves. To get radical. In my experience that has been through reorienting to the practice and state of REST and observing natural cycles of body and land, seeing these as the main key into the inner experience which then transcends into the external world. Dream IN to Work OUT. . . I don’t know if any of this makes sense…
I think it does…You can watch the documentary below, which was Directed by Daniel Broadley.
Dreamer Awake is out now on Navigator Records on CD, Digital and limited edition Ultra Clear Vinyl.
Order here
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