Ship Says Om – Dream Journal: A Sacred Whisper Between Worlds

Reviewed By Glen Parkes for Jace Media Music

In an age when music is often crafted by committee and polished to perfection, Ship Says Om’s new EP Dream Journal arrives like a breath of sacred air — imperfect, organic, and utterly human. The latest project from Berkeley-based artist and producer Jenny Gillespie Mason (known for her work with Sis and The Lower Wisdom), Dream Journal is something different — a six-track offering that blurs the boundaries between sound art, folk ritual, and dreamlike introspection.

Created in just two days at her home studio, the record captures lightning in a bottle — a spontaneous act of expression Mason herself calls a “music emergency”. That urgency seeps through every note, not as chaos, but as liberation. There’s a stillness here that feels alive, a sense of surrender to the creative current where the spiritual and the domestic intertwine seamlessly.

A World Built From Whispers and Echoes

Unlike traditional studio projects, Dream Journal thrives on immediacy and intuition. Mason built the EP from whatever materials surrounded her: keyboards, guitar, found sounds, and textures gathered from her everyday world — her children’s voices, the whisper of wind, birdsong, and even her dog scratching at the door. These fragments of life become part of the sonic fabric, grounding the ethereal beauty of the compositions in something profoundly real.

Each track unfolds like a quiet meditation, where the line between the sacred and the mundane blurs into something luminous. The EP feels at once deeply personal and universally resonant — a reflection on motherhood, spirituality, and creative surrender. It’s music that asks you not to listen but to breathe with it.

The Sound of a Dream Remembered

Working in a stream-of-consciousness mode, Mason channels an atmosphere that’s both introspective and expansive. The soundscape recalls artists like Four Tet, Julianna Barwick, and Grouper, yet Dream Journal stands apart in its embrace of vulnerability and texture. There’s a Celtic undercurrent in her melodies — an ancient melodic sensibility that feels inherited rather than constructed, echoing her Celtic heritage and fascination with shamanic traditions.

Tracks drift like fragments of a half-remembered dream — layered voices swirl like mist, keys shimmer like light through stained glass, and environmental sounds pulse like a heartbeat beneath the mix. The influence of Integral Yoga, which Mason studies, permeates the EP’s flow. Each piece feels like an offering, a devotional act rather than an ego-driven performance.

You can feel this ethos in the EP’s pacing — it never rushes to reach a climax or resolution. Instead, it invites you to linger in the in-between, where silence is as meaningful as sound.

Recorded Intimacy, Universal Resonance

Recorded and mixed by Bijan Sharifi in Berkeley, the EP’s production is intimate but expansive. There’s a warmth to the recordings — the kind of homegrown resonance you can’t fake in a sterile studio. The sound feels alive, breathing with the room it was created in.

While the project’s foundation is ambient folk, Dream Journal carries a mystical pulse that defies categorisation. Its shamanic textures and Celtic-inflected melodies make it a body of work that feels like both a ritual and a lullaby. It’s the soundtrack to the inner landscapes we visit in our most lucid dreams — where the spirit wanders freely through sound and memory.

A Journal of the Subconscious

At its core, Dream Journal lives up to its title. It’s a sonic diary, each track a page from Mason’s own exploration of the subconscious. There’s courage in her openness — in creating without overthinking, in allowing imperfection to become beauty. This is music not designed for mass consumption but for reflection, for healing, and for those seeking connection in stillness.

It’s the kind of record that reminds us that art can be a form of prayer — not bound by structure or genre, but by intent. Mason has crafted something intimate yet boundless, an artefact of a moment that feels timeless.

In a world obsessed with noise, Dream Journal is a soft-spoken revelation — an invitation to stop, listen, and rediscover the quiet magic in ordinary life.