When it Comes on Like a Dream by Brian Sendrowitz

The record's beauty lies in the truth of its aim: trying to create something more grandiose than the sum of its parts.

The album is built around live takes constructed in close quarters. Brian and producer Phil Jimenez had worked together before, but only in fragments. It appeared that the tandem would never get the chance to complete a project together. Case in point: the album was lost in cyberspace's deepest abyss and would take $20,000 to even attempt to retrieve. Miraculously, Phil stoically rescued it through divine technological troubleshooting and ultimately saw it through to its completion.

There was a lot of love put into making the album. It was recorded in Phil's Huntington studio, which doubles as his residence. Vanesa, Phil's wife, laid down harmony vocals whenever their baby daughter was napping. Jim Mansfield, who plays drums on the record, played the role of quality control barometer. A musician's musician, he possesses the ability to express disapproval or satisfaction with a single look. His Clint Eastwood-esque facial intimidation kept all those involved on top of their game. Ultimately, the album exceeded his expectations.

Toward the end of the recording process, I asked Brian if he was conscious of the redemptive elements of music. His answer was mixed. Redemption is always in the back of his mind as the ultimate ambition, he said. However, when performing he's concentrating on the song and giving it what he feels it deserves. It's akin to trying to find the best way to express a thought with words. The redemption is subconscious and more of a byproduct of successful execution of thought. When I asked him to compare the feeling of achieving this to something, he had to think about it for awhile. A week later he gave me an answer via e-mail, "It's quite an empowering feeling, like the last scene in Punch-Drunk Love. The invincibility that having love in your heart lends is worth the whole goddamn world."

-John P. Darcy, Winter 2004

Brian Sendrowitz is a singer and a songwriter who comes from a place called Bellmore, New York. When he was five he spent his Sunday mornings in front of the family stereo with his finger on the record button, listening to the top forty countdown, waiting for "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince to come on so he could tape it. He started playing guitar in the eighth grade listening to Led Zeppelin, then he heard Nirvana and spent most of high school playing in punk rock bands. Brian studied creative writing and literature at Purchase College and for a time he couldn't decide whether he should be a writer or a musician. Eventually he chose music figuring it would probably be a little less lonesome. He released his first record Morning is Broken in 1998 of which Newsday's Kevin Amorim remarked, "You may just think you're listening to a young, American version of Cat Stevens."

Brian really loves the Beat writers and Van Morrison, too. His second record, This Fleeting House, was released in November of 2001 and received frequent airplay on WFUV. Brian currently lives in Mineola, NY with his wife Elizabeth and their infant son Jackson. At 26, Brian has just released the record he's wanted to make for years. When it Comes on Like a Dream is a collection of ten songs produced by frequent collaborator Philip A. Jimenez, and it owes as much to Yo La Tengo's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out as it does to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.

for more info visit www.briansendrowitz.com

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