Kid Reno's soundtrack to Laura Obermeyer's short film In Your Dreams is a successful artistic detour that captures a new kind of beauty in Reno's music.
Reviewed by Alex "Ash" Han
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a review that was originally written in early 2023, but due to various unforeseen challenges (read: life) remained unpublished until today! Although the project has been out for upwards of a year at this point, I want to remind you all to support Kid Reno and stream the project! The links to the project can be found via Kid Reno's Linktree. My previous review of Kid Reno's preceding LP, Techno for Children and Dogs, can be found here!
Also, don't forget to check out the film for which the soundtrack was written! Laura Obermeyer's In Your Dreams is available to watch on YouTube.
FOR THOSE OF US IN MUSIC TECHNOLOGY, the prospect of eventually finding work in the film industry is not an unrealistic one, and in many ways, us musicians are just as tied to the world of film as we are to the world of music. Our skills as audio engineers are in heavy demand, and the fact that our graduation requirements stipulate that all of us must take Audio for Video serves as further proof of this; in my own time in Audio for Video, I actually seemed to have somewhat of a knack for ADR and even Foley, which was a pleasant surprise! In my time in MTech, I've seen a healthy amount of undergraduates come out of that Audio for Video course and start working on student productions all over campus, armed with a newfound passion for the world of film music. That said, I myself still have yet to take a gander at actually composing original music for a film; it seems like a decidedly scary endeavor I haven't plucked up the courage to attempt yet. Thus, when Reno Haas told me he was working on the score for Laura Obermeyer's short film In Your Dreams, I found myself rather excited for him—not least because I was hyped to see him gain some work experience in this context, but also because I was secretly very intrigued to see how the brand of off-the-wall, high-octane techno-house I associate with Kid Reno would translate to a film scoring setting.
I went into this soundtrack album unsure of what to expect, and sure enough, the result I got was certainly very interesting! Kid Reno's soundtrack to In Your Dreams marks a significant artistic departure from the established sound of the Renoverse. Whereas Reno's previous body of work, the full-length LP Techno for Children & Dogs, was defined by its heady, spirited, and wildly energetic techno sound, In Your Dreams embraces a softer, more ethereal aesthetic, resulting in a collection of songs that skirts significantly closer to alternative pop and indie rock territory than anything I've heard from Reno so far. The new sound is hugely fitting in context; I also watched In Your Dreams, the film, in preparation for this review, which I very much enjoyed. The film plays like a cross between a skiing stunt montage and an extended music video in which director Laura Obermeyer follows the thrill-seeking adventures of a group of female skiers; coupling some genuinely insane stunts with beautiful footage of the Utah Rockies, I thought the film was a wonderfully endearing piece of work that captured a really special bond and mutual camaraderie between the group of friends depicted in the film. Reno's music underscores a good portion of the film's runtime, and makes for a wonderful, emotionally impactful addition; Reno's sweeping, majestic soundtrack manages to capture both the desolate beauty of the Utah backcountry as well as the adrenaline-filled, youthful exultation of tearing down the mountainside alongside friends cheering you on. In short, while I think In Your Dreams works best when consumed alongside its parent film, it's still an incredibly enjoyable body of music in its own right, and it makes for an excellent showcase of the kind of head-spinning creativity only Reno can pull off.
"I reached out to [Reno] about using some of their music back in 2020, when the project was first taking shape. Since then, they've become my best friend and biggest supporter during the process of making the movie." –Laura Obermeyer, director of In Your Dreams
We begin with "Aetherian (Intro)", a one-minute intro track which opens up the album on an icy, reverb-heavy synth pad that feels like a bird's eye view soaring over the snowcapped alpines of the Rockies; this synth pad soon becomes layered amidst other pads that convey a similarly spacious feeling as a spoken-word poetry sample enters over the top and a heavenly, blue-tinted synth lead plays a sparse, major key melody. I thought Reno's sound selection was absolutely perfect here; he conveys the cinematic buildup of this moment extremely well without hitting the listener over the head with a wall of sound, and the soundscape manages to feel immense and vast without being overstuffed with elements, which I thought made for a nice parallel with the duality of In Your Dreams' mountain-range setting: vertigo-inducing heights and towering peaks juxtaposed with huge empty space in between. I haven't been skiing in a long time, but for me, this track felt like the moment just before pushing off from the peak, like standing at the top of the mountain and taking in the view for a second before beginning the thrilling plunge downward into the rest of the soundtrack. "Aetherian (Intro)" was a wonderful way to set the stage, both on this album and in the actual film, and I thought it made an excellent showcase for Reno's expertise in sound selection and design.
Pictured above: Kid Reno (left) and Doggy Collar (right) performing together at Moodring on April 19th, 2024. Photograph by me.
The second track, titled "giribaldi's party (street) [kill the landlord]", begins with a muffled, distorted sung vocal sample that leads us into an electronic indie four-on-the-floor drum groove propelled by a crunchy snare and glassy hi-hats. We're dropped right into a killer chorus, led by digitized and slightly robotic-sounding feminine vocals in two-part harmony; I couldn't quite make out the lyrics underneath all the processing, but the melody and the chord progression combine for a lethally catchy combination that kept me tapping my feet and enthusiastically mumbling along! Reno also does some really nice work meshing together caterwauling synthesizers alongside a ripping electric guitar melody in a combination that feels impressively natural. The ensuing amalgamation sees Reno's uniquely edgy sound design and electronic/dance-centric sensibilities recontextualized inside of a pop-oriented framework, which is a combination I hadn't expected to enjoy so much! After the first chorus, we lapse into an arpeggiated tonic bass line and a subdued, moody vocal refrain of "don't listen to girls when they want you" that makes this section almost feel like an edgier, crunchier take on Billie Eilish. From here, Reno gifts us one more screaming, soaring chorus before the track ends. I feel compelled to once again revive my most common (albeit slightly tongue-in-cheek) criticism of Techno for Children and Dogs here and point out Reno's tendency to gift us hugely catchy tracks that I feel end too soon, and "giribaldi's party" is no exception! I feel like I could have listened to this track for another verse or two and not gotten bored. For what it's worth, though, the two minutes of runtime we did get were super enjoyable, and Reno's zany production hit as hard as always here.
The short, 37-second "Aetherian [Overture]" follows next, reviving the frosty synth lead from the intro track and pairing it with a set of loosely vocal-sounding synth pads that make me picture wind blowing through massive, resonant stone pipes on a mountainside somewhere (almost like the stone statues from "SpongeHenge"… never thought I'd make a Spongebob reference on this blog like this!) in a combination that takes us right back to the mountaintops. I love the little vocal notes and synth textures that periodically ornament the soundscape; otherwise, we stay on a simple major triad for the duration of the piece, which gave this short track a decidedly ambient feel. For whatever reason, the master seems to be really quiet on this track, and came in several decibels lower than the previous track, which did diminish the impact of the track's opening for me somewhat.
"I Remember the Gloves On Your Hands [british columbia]" opens with a snippet of the same poetry sample that kicked off the album in "Aetherian (intro)", looped and progressively mangled more and more until it becomes unrecognizable. A heavy synth bass overlays itself with a bass guitar and peppy, doubled major key vocals as the track's instrumental comes crashing in; this song is based on Finom's "Water", a track which is heavily sampled and augmented with Reno's trademark, hard-edged electronicisms. It sounds to me like Reno's added additional synth parts and drums, which layer over each other and interweave themselves seamlessly into the original track's squealing, doubled electric guitars. As the track builds to its peak, Reno layers multiple drum kits over each other, combining a halftime drum pattern with another drum pattern at regular tempo to create a sideways-listing groove that takes us to the climax, wherein the vocalist asks "why is there water in my eyes?" over and over again through an increasingly unhinged vocal timbre as the drums bang out tumultuous, complex fills and the guitars articulate some heavy, chromatic metal riffs. We emerge from this brief moment of chaos as the track collapses back into the major key and ethereal, panned, staggered vocals close out the track in a decidedly heavenly manner. In the end, I ended up not being a massive fan of this track; I think the original track sampled here might have had a bit too much presence in the final mix, and I would have loved to hear Reno add more elements and mess with the sample some more to create something that felt more congruent with the wild creativity I normally associate with his music. Nonetheless, though, I do love the additions Reno made to the track, and I think in context with the rest of the soundtrack, it works well.
The fifth track, "In Your Dreams [freeride]", opens with some distant vocal notes hidden behind a layer of reverb and crackle, which lead us into a heavy arpeggiated bassline and faraway indie electronic drums; the overall vibe of this section is distinctly meditative and astral, and loosely reminds me of late 2000's retro-influenced indie synthpop acts like MGMT and Passion Pit. This track marks another point in the album where I grew really impressed with Reno's sound design, as he once again manages to evoke the lonely, hyperborean, windswept beauty of the Utah wilderness through a meticulous combination of scintillating, far-flung vocal chops and icy, howling reverb. I'm not in love with the mix on this track; the bass arpeggiator comes through kinda loud and masks over the drums, which end up feeling somewhat obscured and distant throughout the song, resulting in a pulse that felt sort of indistinct. Maybe the bass-heavy mix is an intentional creative choice, but even so, I felt like it detracted (albeit just a tad) from the listener's ability to latch onto the rest of the instrumental and appreciate its beauty. Nonetheless, though, the vibe of this track is absolutely there, and it channels the imagery of the Utah mountains exceptionally well.
After the brief, twelve-second "some[interlude] (where)", which I thought was a serious candidate for the most cleverly named album interlude I've seen in a hot minute, we segue into "In Your Dreams [director's cut]", a reprise/alternative cut of the title track that gives us a longer, more drawn-out intro and a different, slower-paced arrangement that sees us spend more time in drumless territory, led by ethereal and dreamy (get it? because it's… in your dreams) synth arps, majestic vocal chops, and a slowly-building kick drum. After a long buildup, we drop into a sparse drum pattern with plenty of hard-panned elements and gated reverb; the resulting vibe feels much clearer and more polished than the earlier "In Your Dreams [freeride]", and perhaps more indebted to the stark, reverb-heavy minimalism of the 1980s than the computerized electro retro-fantasy emulation of the 2000s. I really love this alternative version of "In Your Dreams", as it embraces a much more wide-open aesthetic that feels like it gives the track a lot more room to breathe, and all of Reno's little bits of ear candy and production choices get space to shine. Reno even gives us a totally new drum pattern during the track's final moments before letting the creatively-arranged vocal chops take us out.
The final track, "outer(bonus track) [limits]", feels like a loose nod to the aesthetic of Techno for Children & Dogs, mixed with a healthy amount of retro synthpop to boot! The track opens with some celestial synth pads alongside some pitched & mangled spoken vocal samples layered on top of one another to form a chattering chorus of voices; the aesthetic of this moment felt very much like Dog Collar's Jungle Fairy Tale EP from last December for me, as well as being a callback of sorts to Reno's sample-based roots. A fast-paced, building synth arp takes us into the drop, which gives us a synthpop 2/4 drum groove complete with pounding toms and a bright, animated major key melody swallowed behind a veil of reverb and delay. Reno does some entertaining stuff with the drum programming on this track, swapping out the established rhythm for a D&B-esque double-time groove and regularly subtracting and re-adding elements for a consistently dynamic feel. In contrast to the rest of the soundtrack, "outer" felt like a means for Reno to freely express his own artistry outside of the context of the film, and its aesthetic feels a lot more electronic and synth-heavy than the rest of the album does. On the whole, I thought it made for a strong addition to the record, and it was a nice way to end things off with a fun extra track!
"Reno executed my challenging vision and intense direction with impeccable grace and attention to detail, particularly on the last track. Sampling the children's choir song used in the early interlude as an "intro into the dream sequence", the final track… brings the viewer back in to end the experience in the same space… Reno spent hours and hours on FaceTime with me while I sat in isolation over the summer staring at my computer screen, and helped shape the creation of In Your Dreams into what it is in a big, big way. Forever grateful for this one." –Laura Obermeyer, director of In Your Dreams
At the end of the day, this album really threw me on first listen. I wasn't quite sure how to feel about the new sound, especially in comparison to Reno's previous works. I felt like there wasn't as much in the way of cool production tricks and sheer harebrained creativity for me to grab onto as there had been on Techno for Children & Dogs, which consistently threw new sounds and progressively expanding ideas at me for pretty much the whole duration of its runtime. Additionally, I developed another point of contention with this record, which mainly has to do with the mixing and mastering. Mixes on tracks like "I Remember the Gloves On Your Hands [british columbia]" and "In Your Dreams [freeride]" feel a tad unbalanced to me, and the sampled preexisting sounds don't always feel totally congruent with the new instrumentation Reno's added. Additionally, I felt like the mastering work was a bit uneven in terms of level; "outer(bonus track) [limits]" and "giribaldi's party (street) [kill the landlord]" sounded significantly louder than the other tracks on the record, and I found myself having to constantly adjust my monitors while listening to the project in order to maintain a consistent listening level, resulting in my feeling a bit like I had to arm wrestle with Spotify in order to hear the music at an appreciable volume without damaging my own hearing!
All that said—while In Your Dreams was definitely a curveball of sorts, and it subverted my preconceived notions of what I should expect from a Kid Reno album in a big way, I ended up coming away from it with a newfound love for the music. Despite the fact that Reno's previous penchant for serrated, edgy, unapologetically breakneck electronic dancefloor bangers is mostly absent from this new soundtrack, and is replaced with a more mellow aesthetic that takes us away from the nightclub floor and sends us deep into nature, I found myself quite taken with this new collection of songs. That said, it took me until I'd gotten around to actually watching In Your Dreams, the film, before it really clicked for me. Though the emphasis on the spirit of dance is definitely toned down a bit, Reno's sound design and selection is no less integral to the final product here, as his carefully-chosen synth patches and sample choices manage a truly impressive evocation of cold mountain air and snowcapped bluffs that for me is impossible to divorce from the film's strikingly beautiful imagery. Whereas Reno's existing work in the sphere of techno is more about making the listener want to dance, I feel like In Your Dreams is less about providing suitable background music for a dance floor and more about celebrating youth, companionship, and the process of finding joy. Laura Obermeyer's artistic vision has a lot to do with that, of course, and I'm not sure Reno's soundtrack would evoke these deep, thought-provoking themes for me without Laura's kinetic, sweeping cinematography and expert direction. In short, the soundtrack captures something very special to me, and communicates the imagery of its parent film as if it's an aural painting of friendship. And even beyond the context of the film, the album brings us some relentlessly catchy pop earworms that even now remain stuck in my head, looping over and over, proving that Reno can absolutely bring his uncompromisingly ingenious production and excel within the sphere of vocal music—so I suppose at the end of this review, the only complaint I have that matters is that I wish Reno gave us more songs like the ones on this album, and I wouldn't complain if these songs were to signal a broader artistic shift towards a more pop-adjacent sound for Kid Reno! In Your Dreams thus becomes an earnestly beautiful, ferociously creative body of work that made me develop a newfound appreciation for Kid Reno's artistic prowess and versatility, and as always, I remain ever more excited for what he does next, whether we return to the dance floor to headbang until the sun rises, or forge ever deeper into the icy mountain wilderness, that exciting uncharted territory where we make new friends and celebrate life.
Personal enjoyment score: 8 out of 10
Standout tracks: "giribaldi's party (street) [kill the landlord]", "In Your Dreams [director's cut]", "outer(bonus track) [limits]"
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