Parrot Dream

My parents don’t typically like the music I listen to. If it came out in the past two decades and involves any non-analogue instrumentation, they typically aren’t too interested. But last weekend, as I drove upstate with them for a hiking trip, I turned on Parrot Dream’s “Paradise and Prey” off of their 2018 debut album Light Goes. Though anchored by a sprawling synth and heavily compressed guitar, my mom turned around to ask, “What is this? This is good.” My younger brother agreed. Though Parrot Dream is often described as a “dream pop” or “shoegaze” band, there is a universality to their music that extends beyond genre to appeal to people with wildly different tastes.

Christina Hansen Appel and Gonzalo Guerrero formed Parrot Dream in Santiago, Chile in 2013, but moved to Brooklyn the following year and have since garnered more than half a million streams on Spotify. Guerrero, who plays drums and guitar, grew up playing in punk rock bands in Chile, an influence which can be heard in “Julio,” one of the more hard-hitting tracks on Light Goes. Appel, meanwhile, admits to something of a Beatles obsession in her youth, and her writing is very much in the tradition of the more impressionistic lyrics of a “I Am The Walrus” or “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.”

Parrot Dream took their name from a deep-green marker Guerrero once used in his work as a designer and illustrator, but their songs are colored with many shades. My personal favorite is “Grey Falls,” a dark, wild song that channels as much Radiohead as it does Big Thief. Other standouts include the floaty “Sound and Light,” the anthemic “Light Goes (In Mines),” and the more indie-rock “Jungle.”

Listen to Parrot Dream’s new single “Automatic System,” out today wherever you stream your music!

For their Greylist, Parrot Dream shared 9 songs to get lost in.

1. “IR,” Rubio