FULL ALBUM + CDs HERE:
cbrcbr.bandcamp.com/album/dreaming-of-the-desert

Recorded throughout 2021 and released digitally and on compact disc in May 2022, the split album which you have before you called Dreaming of the Desert brings together Buddhist Bubblegum, an indie pop project founded in late 2017 by Wiktor Szotowski - a Polish emigrant now based in Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia - and the pseudonymous Wiggly, an eclectic, freewheeling songwriter from Missouri, USA.

This unusual collaboration, released by the American netlabel Cavern Brew Records, comes after three excellent albums by Wiggly since 2019, the first two of which were self-released digitally, and the third, 2021’s If I give you a cherry, the least you could do is spit the pit back into my bowl so's I can suck on it later, and you don't have to poke me in the eye with the stem, put out on cassette and digitally by Cavern Brew to acclaim on the underground tape scene. For Buddhist Bubblegum, it follows two warmly-received digital singles self-released in mid-2020, and a year and a half-long near-absence from the music scene, during which Szotowski was working on material for Dreaming of the Desert as well as for an upcoming debut album set to come out later in 2022.

While Dreaming of the Desert marks the first official collaboration between the artists, the two have been exchanging and discussing home recordings for some years, which is honoured by Buddhist Bubblegum’s cover of “Stationary Weathervane”, a song that originally appeared on Wiggly’s Master Coon. The latter also makes an appearance on Buddhist Bubblegum’s half of the split as a lyric writer for the track “Summertime”. Maks Rozman of the Slovenian pop groups Regen and Masaž brings the music to life with his excellent drumming.

The material offered by Wiggly on his half of the album is a more solitary affair, with the singer-songwriter writing all of the words and music on his own, and playing all of the instruments, including twelve-string acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, banjo, djembe, and even the washboard. The results range from the electronic soundscapes of “Raspberrystone”, to the hypnotic ambient folk of “Ink Wasters” and “Preacher”, to the bouncy, melodic folk pop of “The Weak Winded Piper and the Nail Sharp Singer” and “House on the Little Stone”.

Buddhist Bubblegum released two digital singles throughout May ‘22 teasing Dreaming of the Desert: “Paper Ridges”, a song first recorded (but never released) in embryonic form in 2018, then recovered and re-recorded in 2021 in keeping with its nostalgic messaging, and “Merry-Go-Round”, another newly re-recorded song, which originally appeared on Buddhist Bubblegum’s first single in July 2020, as the flipside of the self-titled “Buddhist Bubblegum”.