Review
Genre and Mood
Zwicker’s Dragon Fly, with Billy Oden, is electronic music built around a spoken voice. Compost Records describes the album it comes from as a warm mixture of mutated disco, house, electro and pop; this track’s theme, a dream that turns into a nightmare, makes it dreamy and mysterious.
Song Summary
Dragon Fly is the fourth track of Songs of Lucid Dreamers, the album Compost released on 24 April 2009. The label’s note gives its story: deep in the jungle we get lost in our dreams, where white crocodiles and millipedes cross our way. The text is about the nightmares we have about our close ones getting hurt, and the track is dedicated to Zwicker’s son Ryu, whose name is Japanese for dragon. The guest is Billy Oden, whom PopMatters called a spoken-word artist. This album version runs about 5:11.
Musical Breakdown
No source we found describes how Dragon Fly is arranged or times its parts, so this guide names only what the sources give.
The Voice
Billy Oden is credited with the vocal and was introduced by PopMatters as a spoken-word artist: listen for a voice that talks the dream rather than sings it.
The Production
Zwicker’s setting is described only for the album as a whole: songwriting combined with electronic styles, and, for PopMatters, stark, minimalist, often moody textures.
The Versions
A week before the album, Compost Black Label #46 carried an EP version of Dragon Fly, 5:14 long; this is the album version.
Concepts in Focus
spoken word is a vocal delivered as speech. On an album full of singers, Heidi Happy and Olivera Stanimirov among them, Dragon Fly hands the microphone to a speaker, which suits a text that tells a dream like a story.
As a <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist, Oden is one of the guests the producer chose for each song. Cyril Boehler said most of the songs are about dreams, written by him and the guest vocalists; the track’s credits name Boehler and Jan Zimmerli as authors. Compare Zwicker – Oddity (feat. Olivera Stanimirov), the track before it, where Stanimirov sings.
Dragon Fly also exists as an alternate version: the EP version on the Songs of Lucid Dreamers EP1, which Compost billed as extended versions from the coming album, and later a Soultourist remix.
Artistic Context
Zwicker is Cyril Boehler, a producer, composer and DJ from Zurich. Before this album he had released vinyl on BearFunk, Compost Black Label and Get Physical, and Songs of Lucid Dreamers was his attempt to refine that mixture on a full-length record, with guests including Matt Didemus of Junior Boys.
Impact and Reception
PopMatters gave the album 6 out of 10. Among the praise Boehler collected on his site, Steve Bug wrote that he really liked Dragon Fly. It is here for its strange, personal dream. Listen to the voice and follow it into the jungle.
