Dreamcrusher

Glass, who is non-binary,{{cite web |title=Panelist USA: Luwayne Glass AKA Dreamcrusher |url=https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/kul/wir/swl/kfn/trt/21575451.html |website=Goethe-Institut |access-date=5 January 2021}} began making what they describe as "nihilist queer revolt musik" as a teenager sharing tracks on Myspace. After years of touring and over twenty independent releases, Glass moved to New York City in 2015. The same year, Fire Talk Records released Glass's Hackers All of Them Hackers under the Dreamcrusher name to broad acclaim: the release was included in Impose's Best Albums of 2015{{cite web |title=The Best Albums of 2015 |url=https://imposemagazine.com/bytes/chatter/the-best-albums-of-2015 |website=Impose Magazine |date=17 December 2015 |access-date=5 January 2021}} and SPIN's Best Avant Albums of 2015, with VICE writing that the EP "could be the most important noise record of the year".

In 2016 Dreamcrusher was included on the Adult Swim compilation NOISE alongside artists including Merzbow, clipping., Melt-Banana, Wolf Eyes, and Pharmakon.{{cite web |last1=Cush |first1=Andy |title=Hear Adult Swim's New NOISE Compilation, Featuring Pharmakon, Arca, Prurient, and More |url=https://www.spin.com/2016/12/hear-adult-swims-new-noise-compilation-featuring-pharmakon-arca-prurient-and-more/ |website=SPIN |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=20 December 2016}} They are also featured on hardcore punk band Show Me the Body's "collaborative mixtape" Corpus I,{{cite web |last1=Camp |first1=Zoe |title=Show Me the Body: Corpus I |url=https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23107-show-me-the-body-corpus-i/ |website=Pitchfork |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=5 April 2017}} as well as in a music video accompanying the 2017 release.{{cite web |last1=Witmer |first1=Phil |title=We Have No Clue What's Happening in Show Me the Body's "Hungry" Video, But We Can Assume It's Pretty Rad |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/we-have-no-clue-whats-happening-in-show-me-the-bodys-hungry-video-but-we-can-assume-its-pretty-rad/ |website=VICE |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=5 April 2017}}

Grudge2, released in 2018, further solidified Dreamcrusher's reputation as "one of New York’s finest noise mutants".{{cite web |last1=Joyce |first1=Colin |title=Stream of the Crop: 11 New Albums for Heavy Rotation |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/stream-of-the-crop-11-new-albums-for-heavy-rotation/ |website=VICE |access-date=20 October 2020 |date=16 November 2018}} The EP's tracks include "Youth Problem," featuring vocals by Alice Glass of Crystal Castles.

Dreamcrusher released two full-length albums in the summer of 2020. May's Panopticon! was included in Bandcamp Acid Test's Best Albums of 2020,{{cite web |last1=Bowe |first1=Miles |title=The Acid Test's Best Albums of 2020 |url=https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2020/the-acid-tests-best-albums-of-2020 |website=Bandcamp |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=11 December 2020}} Entropy's Top 10 Albums of 2020,{{cite web |title=2020 WAS A YEAR |url=https://entropymag.org/2020-was-a-year/ |website=Entropy Magazine |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=30 December 2020}} Post-Trash's Best of 2020,{{cite web |last1=Wilikofsky |first1=David |title=Post-Trash's Best of 2020 Staff Picks |url=http://post-trash.com/news/2020/12/24/staff-picks |website=Post-Trash |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=28 December 2020}} and Mixmag{{'}}s Albums of the Year.{{cite web |title=The Best Albums of the Year 2020 |url=https://mixmag.net/feature/the-best-albums-of-the-year-2020 |website=Mixmag |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=17 December 2020}} One month later, they released the full-length mixtape Another Country, which was included in Afropunk's 2020 in Review.{{cite web |title=2020 IN REVIEW: THE ALBUMS |url=https://afropunk.com/2020/12/2020-in-review-the-albums/ |website=Afropunk |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=24 December 2020}}

In October 2020, PBS Digital Studios' Sound Field aired a mini-documentary on Dreamcrusher, titled "The Untold Story of Noise and Experimental Music". Recorded in Brooklyn, New York during the pandemic, the episode features a socially-distanced interview and live performance at Saint Vitus.

Dreamcrusher is known for a live performance style that is interactive,{{cite web |last1=Davies |first1=Jon |title=Interdependence, or how I learned to love again on the dancefloor |url=https://www.factmag.com/2019/12/20/interdependence-or-how-i-learned-to-love-again-on-the-dancefloor/ |website=Fact Magazine |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=20 December 2019}} high-engagement, and multi-sensorial,{{cite web |last1=Mandel |first1=Leah |title=On losing yourself in order to find yourself |url=https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/musician-luwayne-glass-on-losing-yourself-in-order-to-find-yourself/ |website=The Creative Independent |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=23 July 2019}} with FLOOD magazine describing their live show as "a full-on, full-body sensory experience".{{cite web |last1=Mandel |first1=Leah |title=15 Noise and Experimental Artists You Should Really Know About |url=https://floodmagazine.com/61131/15-noise-experimental-artists-you-should-know/ |website=FLOOD Magazine |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=14 May 2019}} They say in interviews that they prefer "an exchange with the audience" rather than providing an isolated "spectacle," "like eyeballs are on me, but there’s not an interest"; they move through the crowd rather than performing onstage, and often serve as the source rather than object of a show's lighting, wearing a strobing headlamp that illuminates those in the audience.

Those praising Dreamcrusher's live performances often acknowledge that this combination––of high volume, unpredictable movement, and even flicker vertigo––can be jarring, producing feelings of disorientation and vulnerability.{{cite web |last1=McDermott |first1=Patrick |title=Watch Dreamcrusher's Disorienting "Fear (And No Feeling)" Video |url=https://www.thefader.com/2015/10/29/dreamcrusher-fear-and-no-feeling-video |website=THE FADER |access-date=5 January 2021 |date=29 October 2015}} Scholars Shoshana Rosenberg and Hannah Reardon-Smith frame the means and aims of Dreamcrusher's "affective atmosphere" as "electronics and harsh vocals (often screamed into the face of their audiences) to explore queerness, experiences of violence, and feelings of societal and relational abjection", but write that the resulting "psychophysiological states" can be transformative, generating "an ethics of care, through mutuality, solidarity and empathy". Similarly, David Farrow considers Dreamcrusher part of a music community in which explorations, performances, and even productions of pain can forge a "queer kinship" of "social connections that extend beyond performance".

{{reflist}}

Category:American experimental musicians

Category:American electronic musicians

Category:American noise musicians

Category:Musicians from Kansas

Category:American queer musicians

Category:Living people

Category:American non-binary musicians

Category:LGBTQ people from Kansas

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Musicians from Wichita, Kansas

Category:21st-century African-American musicians

Category:21st-century American LGBTQ people