After three records that never saw the light of day (Moving Pictures, Emotional Tourist and Rice EP), and three modern-pop/rock records (Love in the Western World, Lost Horizon and Magnificent Obsession), We Dreamed We Were Strangers (with 92's The Butterfly Effect and 94's Empty Orchestra) completes Steve Scott's third circuit of sorts of spoken word recordings that pair readings of his emotional, literary poetry with ambient and "found music" loops.
Scott uses more organic, acoustic and ethnic instruments in constructing his loops for this project, making Strangers feel natural and soft and ultimately more musical than Butterfly, which often felt artificial and forced. And in a scene where most spoken word artists try to have the fastest, most bombastic verbal approach - as if they were rap artists instead of poets - Scott's softspoken, carefully enunciated understates the emphasis of each syllable, making you pay attention to each image rather than have the words forced down your ears.
In his halcyon days in the 80's as a pop singer, Scott was part of a small cadre of artists that produced christian music relevant to the mainstream of music listeners. His output in the 90's, however, has placed him in the company of himself as the sole christian spoken word musician to release records to a national audience. In that respect, he sets the standard for himself to follow. And with each new recording, he ups the stakes making each release more musical, making the words work tonally as well as conceptually with the backing tracks. He continues to break new ground in a field other artists leave fallow.
