Dream Vessel by William Covert

William Covert
Dream Vessel
Coup Sur Coup Records

William Covert has leveraged a rich career as the drummer in various post-rock and post-hardcore bands like Space Blood, Droughts, and Rust Ring to expand the realms of his own creativity through Dream Vessel.

Here he draws on elements of ambient textures with nods to free jazz and gentle math rock to explore depth and dimension through this multi-instrumental landscape.

Six songs of mesmerizing instrumentals take inspiration from John Zorn’s Naked City and Painkiller. They successfully explore the distant mantras of multi-colored ambient mood rings.

Joining Covert on drums for half of the album’s tracks are collaborators Jack McKevitt on guitars and Nathan Schenck on bass, better known together as the William Covert Trio. You can find the group under the alias of Tum, Chicago’s post hardcore noise rock outfit.

The sound may be different as they explore caverns that bend genres into a creative output that’s enlightening. This could have been a painstakingly detailed studio process, but it’s not; Dream Vessel was recorded live and fully improvised in the studio with no overdubs. It was the only way that they could let go of boundaries and tap into their raw, collective energy.

The other half of the album is all Covert as he experiments with ambient soundscapes, trippy guitars, and intricate drumming. Its structure is disciplined and limitless to the imagination. Chicago has documented many exceptional instrumentalists and William Covert carries that legacy into modern times with his own success story.