Chicago-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Elijah Montez is the frontman and creative mastermind behind the rising psych pop project Daydream Review. After relocating from Austin to Chicago, Montez and Daydream Review began catching the attention of Chicago’s leading tastemakers and beyond with the release of 2020’s “Blossom” and 2021’s retro-tinged, self-titled debut EP.
Last summer, the Chicago-based artist released two tracks, an A-side “Sensory Deprivation” and a B-side “Dream Sequence #29,” as a palette cleanser to his Daydream Review self-titled debut EP — and a teaser of new material. That material quickly established Montez as one of Chicago’s most buzz-worthy new artists. Adding to a growing profile, he supported that material with a lot of time touring with a backing band featuring Kaitlyn Murphy (backing vocals and auxiliary percussion) and a rotating group of friends.
Daydream Review’s 13-song full-length debut Leisure is now out through Side Hustle Records. The album sees Montez aiming to expand upon the layered sonic world he has created — and continuing to push the boundaries of modern psych pop with dynamic production and reflective, existential lyricism. “Leisure is about the ever-present tension between the desire for free time, for personal enjoyment and leisure, and the demands that capitalistic society places on those desires, and how it restricts the ability to enjoy that free time,” Montez explains. ” Your job and work, to me, seem to be consistent specters that haunt your ability to enjoy your free time, knowing that those demands are always awaiting you when your free time comes to an end.”
That uneasy balancing act between work and free time informed much of the album’s creation and its themes. “Leisure,” Montez adds “as a concept, became something almost otherworldly and that much more desirable, something you dream about when you have so much time funneled into work, and the repetitive act of balancing those two ends up being something almost hypnotic, and I tried to channel all of that into the sonic qualities of the album.”
In the lead-up to the album’s release, I’ve written about three singles:
- “Have You Found What You’re Looking For,” a mellow slow-burn centered around painterly, shogeazer-inspired textures created by glistening, delay and reverb pedaled guitars, fluttering synth arpeggios and paired with a trippy groove and Montez’s ethereal delivery. The song sees its narrator asking himself — and in turn, his listener — if they’ve actually found what they’ve been looking for, with the tacit understanding that they may never actually find it anyway.
- “No Eternity,” another slow-burn centered around lush, glistening and wobbling synth arpeggios, a mix of blown-out beats and live drumming paired with Montez’s plaintive cooing and his penchant for well-placed, razor-sharp hooks. While sonically, “No Eternity” brings Currents-era Tame Impala to mind, Montez explains that lyrically, the song is inspired and informed by current events: “Lyrically, it may be the closest to a song specifically about COVID–not the pandemic itself, but between the BLM protests in Summer 2020 and this change a lot of people have had to the nature of work, I had a hard time thinking of how things would look on the other side of it, and trying to make sense of the future when the only context you have is the past,” Montez says.
- Album title track “Leisure,” which continued a remarkable run of slow-burning material, but while rooted in a Quiet Storm-meets-Tame Impala-like groove paired with twinkling keys and Montez’s breathy falsetto cooing. But despite the late night grooves, the song evokes — and expresses — a world-weary exhaustion and frustration that feels all too familiar.
Montez celebrates the release of Leisure with the release of “Dissolving.” Built around languorously buzzing guitars, twinkling synth arpeggios and a relentless motorik groove paired with Montez’s gentle and dreamy cooing, “Dissolving” is a sleek and seamless synthesis of Dark Side of the Moon and Currents that manages to evoke a gentle and slow-burning dissolving of a magic mushroom trip.