MF Tomlinson - Die To Wake Up From A Dream

Die To Wake Up From A Dream

MF Tomlinson

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12" Vinyl Album 9 tracks £25.00 Available 11 July 2025

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Description

MF Tomlinson - Die To Wake Up From A Dream

'Die To Wake Up From A Dream' is MF Tomlinson's third studio album following the critically acclaimed 2021 debut 'Strange Time' and 2023's 'We Are Still Wild Horses', which drew universal praise from Uncut, Mojo, The Times, The Line of Best Fit, and many more.

An opus on human experience, new album 'Die To Wake Up From A Dream' is an urgent and vivid description of the times in which we live. Modern in its production and outlook, shifting sands of organic and electronic soundscapes map the psychic geography of our (internal, external, online, spiritual) reality.

Encompassing folk, shoegaze, art-rock, prog and orchestral traditions, the new album was produced by Tomlinson in his studio in Poplar, London. Meticulously captured one instrument at a time, 'Die To Wake Up From A Dream' is a psychoacoustic odyssey of impossible proportions.

From the grandeur of opener 'Blink & You'll Miss It', and the liminal landscapes of instrumental tracks 'A Dream' and 'A Meadow (Part I)’ featuring Shovel Dance Collective’s Jacken Elswyth, to the stormy, tumultuous 'Your Flight (Dying/Another Dream)' featuring vocals by Dry Cleaning's Florence Shaw, and the solemn beauty of 'I'm On The Border' - a poetic exploration of immigration and global unrest, the universe Tomlinson has created is hyper-real; the falling of a pin detectable in the midst of a raging storm at sea.

Today MF Tomlinson shares the album's centrepiece and 9-minute title track, ‘Die To Wake Up From A Dream’. Sonically drawing from the work of John Martyn, Talk Talk and My Bloody Valentine, Tomlinson tells us of dreams of monsters in his childhood, before drifting into long days and nights of weary work.

“It speaks to the sensation of drowning in the years. Scenes flash by so fast we soon know that we are in a dream, then a nightmare," he says. As the song’s steady pulse builds to an unholy crescendo - digital effects warp and distort like the walls of the world crumbling. But – "When you die in a dream you are safe. When you die in a dream you dream another dream. This is the deus ex machina for us all to remember - that for most, when things seem darker than ever, happiness still exists beyond the tiny parameters that we have set for it. In realising your own power you set yourself free - not one day, but right now. This song is a treatise on resilience, hope and the frankly wildly psychedelic experience of being alive," Tomlinson says.

The song’s jubilant final refrain "it just gets better and better” - recorded during a live set at London’s Cafe Oto in September 2024 - is anchored with a dose of dark humour, speaking to the courage it takes to trust your strength, knowing full well how fragile you are. "It is a dark joke, but at least now we’re all in on it,” Tomlinson notes.

Speaking more on the release of the album’s title track, MF Tomlinson said: “It makes sense to start here - but there’s almost too much to tell. This is one story - but listening to the songs speak to each other is the true meaning of the album. One world is always dreaming of the other."

Tracklisting

12" Vinyl Album (PRAH078D)
  1. Blink And You'll Miss It
  2. My Hand In Yours
  3. A Dream
  4. Die to Wake Up From a Dream
  5. Your Flight (Dying/Another Dream)
  6. Dream of You
  7. I'm on the Border
  8. A Meadow Part I
  9. A Meadow Part II