By Kyle Francis
If Socrates ever managed to get over his weakness for teenage boys and start rapping, he would probably sound something like Calgary’s LuciDream. Ancient Greece’s bad boy of philosophy was never satisfied with the answers presented to him and attempted to bring about change by questioning the foundations on which people based their knowledge. Several thousand years later, Jordan Dack presents this old idea in a new way: with fat rhymes and killer beats.
“LuciDream, if I had to define it and I guess I do, could be defined by the word ‘myutic,’” supposes Dack. “It’s a Greek word that refers to the method of questioning Socrates used that allowed people to give birth to themselves. We don’t claim to know anything at all. It’s not packed with any assumptions or judgments.”
Three of LuciDream’s members used to make up the Calgary hip-hop crew Internal Affairs, but left the name behind when they sold all their worldly possessions to finance the creation of Choose the Madness, the band’s debut album under the LuciDream name. Where Internal Affairs was a politically-minded rap crew with a clear-cut position and agenda, LuciDream claims to ask only the questions, leaving the answers to listeners.
“LuciDream is about diving into the ground to inspect the roots, not to judge the roots anymore but to observe them and plant new seeds,” Dack tends his philosophical garden. “Bands with a political message are needed, but this is just another part that’s needed. We would rather just let the individual know that change is possible.”
The title of the band’s debut album stems from the notion of subtly influencing people’s hearts and minds by making them aware of the possibility for change.
“We try and be examples of it ourselves–I like to call it ‘powerful vulnerability,’” Dack says. “It’s about going out on a limb every day so that other people might do that as well. The biggest changes that have happened through history have usually been sparked from something extremely subtle.”
Rather than attempting to get their epistemological message heard by harassing the citizens of Athens and eventually being asked to drink a cup of hemlock and die, LuciDream has opted to take the far more sensible path of holding a CD release party at a popular night club. While it won’t make for any dramatic oil paintings, Dack hopes the spread of the message will spark the subtle revolution.
“We just want to promote choice and promote creativity,” says Dack. A lot of this stuff sounds optimistic, and people could label our music as positive, but that’s just because everyone’s so used to everything being so universally depressing. People hear us and think we’re some kind of prozac band, but we really just want to open people to themselves, and whatever they find is absolutely beautiful and perfect.”