Remember when you were a kid and life seemed so full of hope and possibilities? Remember when you used to lay on the grass and stare up at the stars imagining yourself floating among them? What happened to that feeling? Why was it so unjustly ripped from us along with the expanses of our imagination as we grew older? Though we may still be able to pretend we’re driving a race car by making noises behind the wheel or pretend we’re spacemen/spacewomen (space people?) by walking slowly and breathing like Darth Vader, it just isn’t the same. We’re still lacking that feeling in our gut we had when imaging was so easy. If only there was a talent capable of making this feeling return.

Insert: Freelance Whales

Judah Dadone, Doris Cellar, Chuck Criss, Jacob Hyman, and Kevin Read have created a very intimate world of musical imagination. Their ranging instrumentals are only rivaled by their expansive and endless imagination. Combining their talents under Freelance Whales, their style is vast and their sound is as far reaching as space itself.

The quintet sat down with “the possible survival – or peril – of space-faring humans and other arguably fantastical scenarios.” The end result of their collaborating efforts is the elegantly spacious Diluvia.

By incorporating lush electronic layers with their established dynamic instrumentals Freelance Whales crafts a world in which it is easy to lose yourself and let your mind wander through each track. Toss in the fact that all five members have vocal responsibility and we’ve found a truly talented and authentically memorable sound.

Like that child inside of us who remembers those endless possibilities, Diluvia stretches out far and wide with their latest release. Their sound is molded around synths reminding me of big 80s sounds dancing majestically with ambient effects and indie-pop vocals. Diluvia is built with a range of appealing tracks. “Aeolus” promptly entangles you in a floating and intellectually powered composition, “Follow Through” builds up to a piano backed ballad, “Locked Out” is rich with imaginative range and “DNA Bank” weaves a complexly contemplative lyric into a light almost whimsical melody.  Freelance Whales paint a world that is a thinker’s music. They evoke thought and emotion with little effort. Harnessing their ideas and their art in an eleven track album, coming close to an early Death Cab sound, Freelance Whales is a sound alone in an infinite space of potential. They enable you to be full of hope and possibilities again, but with an understanding that those possibilities may be faced with harsh realities.