VIA PRESS RELEASE | After wrapping a sold out fall tour with his band, the acclaimed post-hardcore art rock pioneers Shudder To Think, musician Craig Wedren has announced the release of The Dream Dreaming Deluxe on April 10 via his Tough Lover imprint.
The new release from the acclaimed frontman and prolific film & television composer—known to TV audiences as the composer behind the wildly popular series Yellowjackets, among many other projects—is an expanded version of his acclaimed 2024 album which includes the original 11-song album, 5 unreleased tracks, and another 5-song acoustic EP with string quintet, recorded live at the legendary Henson Studios (now Chaplin Studios) in Los Angeles. Today, he also shares the first tease of the deluxe with “Nothing Bad” alongside the official video for the single directed by Craig Wedren, Shon Hedges, and Frank Barrera.
Wedren shares: “Increasingly, we have multiple “at-bats” when putting out a record—the initial release, the deluxe version, plus whatever other clever variations evolve from there. A lot of deluxe releases are bloated and boring, of course. But some of my favorite recent albums have been weirder, redux mutations of the initial, ‘definitive’ product.
I like having access to all of the bonus material that comes with an artist’s output in our current age—it can make an album feel like a dynamic, living thing, rather than a frozen moment in time. I’m happy to sacrifice a little of the mystery that used to be de rigueur for artists, in exchange for insight into process, inspiration, and backstory. That said, the THING is still the music, and if your record sucks, why waste anybody’s time with all the rest of it.
In the spirit of telling a fuller (but never the whole) story—showing a little more leg, as it were—I’m sincerely excited to share The Dream Dreaming Deluxe. When I set out to make The Dream Dreaming, I wanted to make a video for every song, collaborating with friends and directing/shooting/editing many of them myself. At a certain point, however, I just needed to put the thing out and move on, both creatively and life/work-wise, even though I’d only gotten about 3/4 of the way there with the visual side of things. With the deluxe release, I aim to finish the job and right all wrongs.”
The Dream Dreaming began as a series of singles before growing into a full-length LP that freely merged Wedren’s DC punk, heavy alternative, pop, dance music, and soundtrack sensibilities—reconciling a lifetime of influences into something gloriously unclassifiable. It marked Wedren’s first album since a sudden heart attack in 2018, and a reminder that evolution hadn’t dulled the whimsy or the weird—if anything, it sharpened them. The Dream Dreaming Deluxe picks up where that vision left off, expanding the project with new material that deepens its world.
You can read more about the deluxe as well as Wedren’s other musings on ideas surrounding music and creativity in general via his Substack @CRAIGWEDREN.
