MF Tomlinson at The Castle
Johnny James, Managing EditorBook now
MF Tomlinson
Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.
London-based, Brisbane-born singer-songwriter MF Tomlinson brings album number three, Die To Wake Up From A Dream, to The Castle this autumn.
Released via PRAH Recordings, it follows his acclaimed Strange Time (2021) and We Are Still Wild Horses (2023) – records powered by a rich, Adam Green-esque tenor and modern-folkloric storytelling, drawing on the classic songbook (Richard Thompson, Leonard Cohen) while leaving space for the odd guitar freak-out. Those earlier albums remain intimate, beautifully crafted sets; the new one feels markedly more ambitious.
An opus on human experience, Die To Wake Up From A Dream folds art rock, prog and orchestral colours into shifting organic/electronic landscapes. The ethos nods to Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden – not in imitation, but in experimentalism, patience and space, mapping psychic geographies across the internal, external, online and spiritual. “This is one story,” Tomlinson notes. “One world is always dreaming of the other.”
The nine-minute title track is a highlight. Moving from childhood monsters to the grind of adult work, it starts dreamlike and innocent before swelling into layers of distorted guitar, digital corruption, and corroded percussion. Tomlinson frames it as a practical kind of dream logic: “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.”
The wonky anthem ‘Blink & You’ll Miss It’ sets a grand tone for a grand album, Elsewhere, with tracks like ‘I’m On The Border’ bringing something more solemn and poetic. There are also some interesting collabs: ‘A Dream’ and ‘A Meadow (Part I)’ feature Shovel Dance Collective’s Jacken Elswyth; ‘Your Flight (Dying/Another Dream)’ brings Dry Cleaning’s Florence Shaw into a stormy, slow-building duet.
Tomlinson’s new album – like his career more widely – keeps pushing forward, finding new ways to capture the strangeness and beauty of being alive. Catching him in the intimate surrounds of The Castle should be pretty special.
