The California-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Dream Tonic teams up with producer Lucien Francis for their Halloween-inspired and sultry single, "I Taste."
Dream Tonic is the musical vision of Kristin Allen-Farmer, who pairs a lifetime of being a classically trained pianist with her affinity to electronic dance music. Her ethereal and whispery vocals are a result of listening to musical influences like Billie Eilish, Morcheeba, Bjork, and Portishead. She's currently on track to release her debut EP sometime soon.
Now teaming up with Bay Area-based producer Lucien Francis for their steamy new single, "I Taste," the duo also released an equally trippy music video that's well worth the watch. In terms of the single, Dream Tonic's haunting vocals alongside Lucien Francis' powerhouse production makes for quite an exhilarating experience. The song offers this eclectic and high-energy mix of electro-pop, house, and dubstep to get the listener moving and grooving.
Listening to the genre-defying single, "I Taste," the song opens with dreamy and celestial pads and Dream Tonic's whispery and angelic vocals. The song itself surrounds a vampiress on the hunt for the fresh taste of blood, and Tonic truly embodies this persona perfectly. As the song takes off, a plucky and funky bassline alongside a bright guitar riff and a groovy dance beat melt through our speakers and leaves us tapping our feet.
About halfway through the track, Dream Tonic and Lucien Francis take us by surprise with their powerful, gritty, and industrial dubstep bass drop that truly ups the energy and authenticity of this dynamic banger. Towards the outro, a growling dubstep synth launches us above this stratosphere while closing the song on a dreamy and chilling note.
Show some love to Dream Tonic and Lucien Francis' latest single, "I Taste," available on all digital streaming platforms.
Welcome to BuzzMusic Dream Tonic. We're head over heels for the powerful and mystical approach you've taken with your recent single, "I Taste." What inspired you to write a song about a vampiress on the hunt for fresh blood?
I'm part of a producer community and record label called "Producer Dojo" - headed up by the notorious dubstep producer ill. Gates. Every so often, they hold a "challenge" within their producer community to create a song according to certain parameters. This particular Halloween challenge was to create a song inspired by horror movies using synthesizers that were popular during the 1980s, and it had to be under 2 minutes. I teamed up with another Dojo producer, Lucas Franco (Lucien Francis), and we wrote this track together over Zoom. We got so inspired by the track we decided to do an official release in addition to a music video (and make a full-length song that extended past the 2-minute requirement!). The lyrics "I Taste" popped into my head - my mind went to a dark, sexy, playful, and macabre place. I embraced this vision, and the song pretty much wrote itself.
Is this your first time collaborating with producer Lucien Francis for "I Taste?" What was this Zoom creative process like?
This track catapulted Lucien Francis and me into a series of subsequent collaborations - we've since created about 12 tracks together - all unreleased, in various genres. So, our workflow for "I Taste" went like this: I wrote Verse 1 and then sent him my Ableton session. He then wrote the drop and sent it back to me. We texted certain lyric ideas back and forth (in a flurry of excitement!) until we arrived at the gem that we both agreed on. We then get together on Zoom and make certain production choices together in real-time - which synths to use, what kick and snare we want, and what glitches and certain finishing touches we want to implement. We do a LOT of work together in real-time, then go into our subsequent studios, work on tasks in parallel and then come back together to integrate. Our workflow is very dialed in and efficient by so many collabs together at this point.
What sort of scenes or atmosphere did you want to provide with the music video for "I Taste?" Who edited the music video's trippy visuals?
During one of our Zoom collabs together, Lucien Francis and I got creative envisioning a vibe for a potential music video. We wanted it to be dark, sexy, glitchy, 80’-ish, trippy, and otherworldly - almost like you're observing a vampire's story via a bad glitching out TV. We brainstormed certain positions, movements, etc., that the vampiress might have during certain lyrics. We chose a dress together for her and came up with a color scheme. Having been a professional samba dancer, I got really into planning and brainstorming choreography and was fully inspired by this task. We marked up a potential choreography. I practiced it a few times and then went into my friend's DK3 Production Studio to record the raw footage with a green screen in the back. When I got home, I loaded up the footage into Final Cut Pro and proceeded to make and edit my first music video ever on my own. I pulled in various background footage from various sources, chopped up the raw footage, applied effects, and had a ton of fun. It was a big learning curve, but I had a blast doing it and am ready to make another music video for our upcoming future bass version of "Silent Night."
Should we expect to hear "I Taste" on your forthcoming debut EP? How will this EP help us get to know you better?
"I Taste" will not be on my upcoming EP....it will remain as a single. My upcoming EP, however, is an exciting piece of work. It is a collection of songs I've written during covid. The lyrics have been thoughtfully written over hours and hours of rumination. The production has been carefully crafted and curated over hours and hours of tutorials and one-on-one sessions with mentors. My vocal tracking process has been meticulously honed and sharpened to create the cohesive sound of DreamTonic vocals that are featured on my EP. The vibe is mostly dreamy, vibey, slightly haunting with a tinge of darkness. It's considered to be mostly a melodic downtempo, chillwave vibe, heavily inspired by Billie Eilish, Portishead, and Morcheeba. However, ill. Gates held a remix competition in the Producer Dojo community for my EP, and we are also coming in hot with ANOTHER DreamTonic Remix EP that will be released! There will be everything from house to synthpop to future bass to drum and bass on there with my songs as the basis. You can expect another collab with Lucien Francis to be released in early December - it's a future bass version of Silent Night!