After more than five years, musician Tim Foljahn is returning with an engaging new solo album, I Dreamed a Dream, that will be released May 7 by Cart/Horse Records as a digital download, CD, 12” vinyl LP, as well as via streaming platforms.

I Dreamed a Dream reunites Foljahn with noted producer/engineer/mixer Tom Beaujour (Juliana Hatfield, Nada Surf, Jennifer O’Connor) who worked on Foljahn’s previous releases, Fucking Love Songs (Kiam, 2015) and Songs for an Age of Extinction (Kiam, 2012).

Beaujour and Foljahn’s producer-musician relationship has evolved into something just short of telepathy; as Tim has refined his writing, singing, and playing, Beaujour has continued finding the perfect means of complementing him sonically.

Recording occurred off and on over the past several years at Beaujour’s New Jersey-based Nuthouse studio. It took a while as Foljahn was busy filming episodes of the hit show Orange Is the New Black, appearing as a member of “Sideboob,” Assistant Warden Caputo’s bar band, not to mention pursuing his Master’s degree in psychoanalysis.

Foljahn’s decades as a highly in-demand studio and on-stage guitarist and ever more accomplished and sophisticated songwriter crystalize on this new album. His trademark songcraft, guitar expertise, and seamless genre change-ups are all present and accounted for, but now imbued with an added sense of depth and beauty. The “dream of life” is a recurring lyric theme, along with disillusionment, and ultimately resurrection. The album is mature, vital. Foljahn not only draws from his many vaunted experiences in music, but from the ever-shifting world around him.

Although he’s released solo work for over a decade, Tim has always thrived on collaboration. He put out five diverse and critically-acclaimed albums as Two Dollar Guitar with Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and a rotating cast of bandmates. His distinctive guitar stylings have graced records by Cat Power, Half Japanese, Thurston Moore, and many others; he has performed live on stage with greats such as Townes Van Zandt and Boredoms.

For I Dreamed a Dream, Foljahn reconvened with two longtime Two-Dollar teammates: bassist/arranger Jeremy Wilms (TV on the Radio, Julian Velard, etc.) and the internationally renowned New York-based Danish/Spanish vocalist Christina Rosenvinge. On drums is Brian Kantor (Fruit Bats, Vetiver), as well as contributors Meagan Gould (violin/viola) and Danton Boller (double bass/cello).

Big Takeover is pleased to host the premiere of the music video for “Lowdown Day,” a folk-tinged lonesome lament that gently trots with a shuffling beat, softly flows with rippling acoustic guitar lines, and features Foljahn in a lightly ruminative mood, partly melancholic, but also part wistful. He contemplates his inner darkness, facing issues that includes relationship woes.

The video clip itself has a whimsically dreamy feel, like that of a reverie, with Foljahn’s face at the center of the screen singing the song, but overlaid with footage of a serene blue sky and floating white clouds that obscure the details of his visage.

Foljahn comments, ““Lowdown Day” is one of those songs where the intro and chorus just sprang into being all at once and quickly suggested the rest. Sitting around with a guitar can allow these things to happen, but not on your schedule. I was pleased to realize the cloud face idea that I had been thinking about for the video for awhile. Of course, it’s very Magritte, but he didn’t have green screen.”

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