The Undercover Dream Lovers

While the name The Undercover Dream Lovers may bring to mind the image of two men in a soul funk duo wearing matching gold lamé suits à la Chromeo, the lovers in question are actually just one guy, Brooklyn based artist and producer Matt Koenig. The sounds that this indie-pop project produces are funky and smooth, for sure, but this project is also a lot weirder than the name suggests. One of his latest tracks, “The Master”, has the lilting, lush grooves of early Beach House, but the funky, eerie soul of bands like Glass Animals and Bear in Heaven. It’s hard to say if the song makes me sad or just makes me want to dance, which is, oddly enough, a perfect combination. - The Wild Honey Pie

Today on NAKID we explore the sounds of “The Undercover Dream Lovers.” Hailing from Brooklyn, producer Matt Koenig captures hearts with his pop rhythms and ethereal, synth driven melodies. The bands EP, titled “While It’s In Style” has a rolling momentum that increases in depth and complexity as it plays on. While new to the scene, “The Undercover Dream Lovers” have made their way to the center of our psyches and left us with more than enough inspiration to daydream on. - NAKID Magazine

More often than not, a song that increases in depth and complexity as it plays on will successfully touch upon human compassion, and make for a more intensive listening experience. Such is the case in “The Master”, the new single from The Undercover Dream Lovers, off the forthcoming EP, While It’s In Style. The self-produced project from Matthew George Koenig operates in pop rhythms and dilapidated synth tones, which inject themselves into the psyche of the heart, and press against its inner walls to misshape it.

“The Master” is a slow-motion game of hopscotch on a rainy day, jumping from jazzed-up kick drum pounding to cooling piano tones to eerily deranged, yet soothing synth tones. Oddly delayed guitar goes through pitch shifting and squiggles along, like a single-celled organism under a microscope, towards the weighty destination of the chorus’ synthetic and stable bass. Its moody, yet pretty composition is conflicted in its feelings towards its subject, as airy, distant vocals sing down into the petri dish of sounds, “You can talk, but I won’t understand a fucker like you, man.” The protozoa-like synth returns, wormier than ever, for a brief funky interlude before all elements collide in the song’s swirling, yet crooning conclusion. - JP Basileo