Steve Wynn's DREAM SYNDICATE belongs to the forefathers of alternative guitar bands. The formation not only influenced the entire Shoegaze scene, but their double guitar front was also the inspiration for Sonic Youth. Wynn himself declared from the beginning that his music would be inspired by Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane. This was not always easy to understand, because these jazz musicians had little to do with guitar rock. But in the five long jams on the new CD "The Universe Within" the connecting line is finally revealed.
"The album sounds like the music we always wanted to make," admits Steve Wynn. "If we'd been able to make a record like that earlier, we probably would have done it long ago. But we just didn't know how to get there. It's a combination of all the things we love. Coleman and Coltrane inspired us with their way of improvising from the beginning. This record is a jazz record, a soul record, a rock record, a psychedelic record, a funk record. It's a Dream Syndicate record."
The prelude to "The Universe Within" was already in the time of the recordings for the last DS album "These Times". After a tiring 12-hour studio day, Wynn's long-time companion Stephen McCarthy, guitarist of the Long Ryders, came by the studio with a six-pack of beer around midnight and they turned up the amps once again. "We started playing and didn't stop for 80 minutes. The next morning we listened to the tapes, liked them and kept the material..."
