Loyola Greyhound

Issue date: 11/11/08 Section: Arts & Society

Media Credit: Photo Courtesy of Dreamscapes Project Virginia based "folk-core" group, The Dreamscapes Project, made a stop in Baltimore during their North American tour. Their show, at The Sidebar Tavern downtown on Lexington St., was a nine-song set that played their standout tracks including "Still Love."

The Sidebar Tavern is a drafty, poorly lit bar and concert venue tucked onto East Lexington St. in downtown Baltimore, a fair hike from the overflowing strip of Fells Point watering holes and the popular Recher Theater in Towson. Despite its circumstances, the Tavern is host to weekly musical visitors of the punk, goth and indie genres and subgenres, leaving little floor space visible due to a packed house.

On Saturday night, the Tavern welcomed The Dreamscapes Project from Virginia, a self-defined "folk-core" group.

"The word, 'folk-core' came about because people kept asking us, 'What are you?' and I've always been against the groups that you meet that are like, 'We're very hard to describe,' but then they're just hip-hop or something very describable," said vocalist and guitarist Keith Center. "It's like, we're not so pretentious or so good that it's too hard to describe us. So we had to come up with something that we could say."

With an almost entirely acoustic set-up, the band produced a flawless set, sounding identical live as on their latest release, Pity in a Heartbeat. With lyrics that reflect everything from current politics to emotions, The Dreamscapes Project represents a broad range of passion, not settling into one genre during live shows.

"I think what brought us to that sound is that we were in college and I always really loved acoustic sound," said Center. "Unfortunately, everything I ever heard on the radio that was acoustic was happy and lovey, and I just felt like there was a lot more range there that could be used. So I kind of spread out to see what I could do with that."

With a singer that sounded like Incubus' Brandon Boyd on a rainy goth-phase day (for the better) and instruments from cellos to spoons, The Dreamscapes Project didn't skip a beat as they played a nine-song set. One of their standout tracks was, "Still Love," a delicate, cello-fueled, poetic twanging song with mentions of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

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