Luwayne Glass, better known as Dreamcrusher, is a Brooklyn-based

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arise ...

musician from

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...

. Dreamcrusher has been the subject of features in ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'', ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'', and '' FADER''; praised in ''

SPIN Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...

'' and ''

VICE A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tra ...

''; and was featured in a mini-documentary for

PBS Digital Studios PBS Digital Studios is a non-profit organization that through which PBS distributes original educational web video content based in Arlington, Virginia. It comprises both original series and partnerships with existing YouTube channels. Most of t ...

' Sound Field. Dreamcrusher's work has also been discussed in scholarly articles in the fields of musicology and queer/affect theory.

Early life and career

Glass, who is

non-binary Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...

, began making what they describe as "nihilist queer revolt musik" as a teenager sharing tracks on Myspace. After years of touring and over twenty independent releases, Glass moved to New York City in 2015. The same year, Fire Talk Records released Dreamcrusher's ''Hackers All of Them Hackers'' to broad acclaim: the release was included in Impose's Best Albums of 2015 and SPIN's Best Avant Albums of 2015, with VICE writing that the EP "could be the most important noise record of the year". In 2016 Dreamcrusher was included on the

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as

dult swim Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representati ...

and often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...

compilation ''

NOISE Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arise ...

'' alongside artists including

Merzbow is a Japanese noise project started in 1979 by , best known for a style of harsh, confrontational noise. Since 1980, Akita has released over 400 recordings and has collaborated with various artists. The name Merzbow comes from the German dada ...

clipping. Clipping (stylized as clipping.) is an American experimental hip hop group from Los Angeles, California. The group consists of rapper Daveed Diggs and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. History Diggs and Hutson met in grade school, ...

Melt-Banana Melt-Banana is a Japanese noise rock band that is known for playing extremely fast noise rock mixed with experimental, electronica and pop-based song structures. Since forming in 1992 the band has released ten albums and toured worldwide extens ...

Wolf Eyes __NOTOC__ Wolf Eyes is an American experimental music group from Detroit, Michigan, formed in 1996 by Nate Young. Currently a duo, Wolf Eyes are a prominent act within contemporary noise music. They have collaborated with a variety of artists from ...

, and Pharmakon. Dreamcrusher is also featured on hardcore punk band

Show Me the Body Show Me the Body is an American hardcore punk band from New York. Their sound draws heavily on hip hop, noise music and sludge metal. Their debut album, '' Body War'', was released in 2016. History 2009–13: Early years Julian Pratt first ...

's "collaborative mixtape" ''Corpus I'', as well as in a music video accompanying the 2017 release. ''Grudge2'', released in 2018, further solidified Dreamcrusher's reputation as "one of New York’s finest noise mutants". The EP's tracks include "Youth Problem," featuring vocals by

Alice Glass Margaret Osborn (born 25 August 1988), known professionally as Alice Glass, is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She is the co-founder and former frontwoman of the electronic band Crystal Castles. In 2014, she embarked on a solo career. She rel ...

Crystal Castles Crystal Castles was a Canadian electronic music group formed in 2006 in Toronto, Ontario, formed by songwriter-producer Ethan Kath and singer-songwriter Alice Glass, who later left and was replaced by Edith Frances. Crystal Castles were known ...

. Glass released two full-length albums in the summer of 2020. May's ''Panopticon!'' was included in

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...

Acid Test's Best Albums of 2020, ''Entropy'''s Top 10 Albums of 2020, Post-Trash's Best of 2020, and ''

Mixmag ''Mixmag'' is a British electronic dance and clubbing magazine published in London. Launched in 1983 as a print magazine, it has branched into dance events, including festivals and club nights. History The first issue of ''Mixmag'' was prin ...

''s Albums of the Year. One month later, Glass released the full-length mixtape ''Another Country'', which was included in Afropunk's 2020 in Review. In October 2020,

' Sound Field aired a mini-documentary on Dreamcrusher, titled "The Untold Story of Noise and Experimental Music". Recorded in Brooklyn, New York during the

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

, the episode features a socially-distanced interview and live performance at

Saint Vitus Vitus (), whose name is sometimes rendered Guy or Guido, was a Christian martyr from Sicily. His surviving hagiography is pure legend. The dates of his actual life are unknown.Basil Watkins, ''The Book of Saints: A Comprehensive Biographical D ...

Performance style

Dreamcrusher is known for a live performance style that is interactive, high-engagement, and multi-sensorial, with ''FLOOD'' magazine describing their live show as "a full-on, full-body sensory experience". Glass says in interviews that they prefer "an exchange with the audience" rather than providing an isolated "spectacle," "like eyeballs are on me, but there’s not an interest"; they move through the crowd rather than performing onstage, and often serve as the source rather than object of a show's lighting, wearing a

strobing Jerkiness, sometimes called strobing or choppy, describes the perception of individual still images in a motion picture. Motion pictures are made from still images shown in rapid sequence. Provided there is sufficient continuity between the imag ...

headlamp that illuminates those in the audience. Those praising Dreamcrusher's live performances often acknowledge that this combination––of high volume, unpredictable movement, and even

flicker vertigo Flicker vertigo, sometimes called the Bucha effect, is "an imbalance in brain-cell activity caused by exposure to low-frequency flickering (or flashing) of a relatively bright light." It is a disorientation-, vertigo-, and nausea-inducing effect of ...

––can be jarring, producing feelings of disorientation and vulnerability. Scholars Shoshana Rosenberg and Hannah Reardon-Smith frame the means and aims of Dreamcrusher's "affective atmosphere" as "electronics and harsh vocals (often screamed into the face of their audiences) to explore queerness, experiences of violence, and feelings of societal and relational abjection", but write that the resulting "psychophysiological states" can be transformative, generating "an ethics of care, through mutuality, solidarity and empathy". Similarly, David Farrow considers Glass part of a music community in which explorations, performances, and even productions of pain can forge a "queer kinship" of "social connections that extend beyond performance".

Discography

Albums

EPs

References

{{reflist American experimental musicians American electronic music groups American noise musicians African-American musicians Musicians from Kansas American LGBT musicians Queer musicians Living people Non-binary musicians LGBT people from Kansas Year of birth missing (living people) People from Wichita, Kansas 21st-century African-American people 21st-century American LGBT people