boyhood's 'I'll Dream InStead' Is a Dusty, Hypnotic Masterpiece of One-Woman Bedroom Rock
The Sonic Breakdown
boyhood is Caylie Runciman, and on I’ll Dream InStead the credit list is almost comically short: she wrote it, produced it, engineered it and performed it. The outside help is at the back end, where it counts — James Bunton mixed at Slow Go Sound, Heather Kirby mastered at Dreamlands Mastering. That combination, a genuinely solo record given a proper mix and master, is why this sounds like a decision rather than a limitation.
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Hand Drawn Dracula is a small Toronto operation and this is a small Toronto record, but the low end is not thin. Opener “Loner” sets the template — HighClouds calls it “a dusty and immediately hypnotic introduction,” and dusty is the right register: present, unpolished, deliberately a little worn.
The Spatial Dynamics: Eight tracks, 2:15 to 4:37, with the longest two saved for the end. “Sparkle Dub//I’ll Dream InStead” puts the title inside a double-barrelled track name at the album’s midpoint, and the sequencing moves from the short, withdrawn songs out toward “Fast10” and “DUI,” the two longest and least tidy things here.
Standout Performance
Runciman’s vocal on “Loner,” which HighClouds describes as “Withdrawn without ever feeling lifeless.” That is a hard trick. Withdrawn singing usually reads as either affect or apology; here it reads as someone talking at normal volume in a quiet room, and the record is built to let her.
Why It’s Certified
⚡ The track titles — “Pissing In The Snow,” “Working,” “A Grand Time,” “DUI” — are doing comic and unglamorous work at once, which is exactly the register of the music under them.
🌈 HighClouds, on the project generally, calls Runciman’s output “wonderfully offbeat DIY records,” and on “Loner” lands on: “Still, it is just as captivating.”
🌈 Eight tracks, one person, a tiny label, and a real mix and master behind it — the kind of record most likely to become somebody’s album of the year without ever denting a chart.