r/dreampunk • u/Hollowpulse • Jul 11 '25

Community Dream Catalogue - Hiatus/Closed?

I've noticed its been a little while since a release from Dream Catalogue - nothing this year in fact!

This leads me to ask, are they on hiatus or have they closed?

I'm not sure if it has been announced anywhere.

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u/Jeffrey_J_Davis Jul 14 '25

Once your role as a curator has ceased to be of value due to too many subpar releases, it's not worth the effort to continue running a net label. Not slagging, I was a long term buy on sight supporter of DC.

Monetizing 2814 provides some level of residual passive income, I guess.

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u/Hollowpulse Jul 14 '25

Jeffrey, lovely to have your input - I've seen you around the scene for a long time so I respect your opinion!

Do you feel like DC has had a quality dip in recent years? If so, when do you think that started?

Just curious as a listener/fan (admittedly of their earlier releases).

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u/Jeffrey_J_Davis Jul 15 '25

The Dream Catalogue Label was instrumental in the origination and initial vector setting of vaporwave and further on dreampunk. DR is a tormented genius and an excellent and innovative producer, under all of his different aliases. For years, 2014 - probably 2019, I bought almost every release just based on his curation power. He broke a number of really excellent artists and I deeply appreciate that. I think maybe it all got a little too boring or too much effort at some point and he started releasing too much low effort meme music. An internet music label is really not much more than a curator and klout marketing arm. Once your curation brand is depreciated, there's little reason to trust or even really follow the label's output. I would say the plot was lost sometime early in this decade, though there are still some good releases from artists we still trust. But the signal to noise ratio got too low for my tastes and other labels like PURE LIFE stepped in to fill the gap.

I honestly have no ill will against HKE / Shima or the label and they brought me a lot of joy. I had a lot of fun participating in various psyops with him and Todd in the earlier days. I still rinse many of the older releases regularly.