The Ultimate Dreamers – Paradoxal Implants (Digital EP – Spleen+)
Belgian Post-Punk outfit The Ultimate Dreamers released their latest album last year, featuring thirteen tracks produced by Len Lemeire of Implant. Initially, Lemeire was only asked to remix a few songs, but the collaboration eventually evolved into a complete metamorphosis of six original tracks. Calling them mere remixes hardly does the project justice, as each composition has been entirely reconstructed from the ground up.
The concept is particularly intriguing because Implant and The Ultimate Dreamers do not exactly operate within the same musical universe. As a result, the songs are submerged in an electronic bath where Len Lemeire is clearly given complete artistic freedom. The outcome shifts between dark atmospheres and experimental textures, but above all feels like a daring artistic challenge. Personally, I am especially drawn to the heavy bassline and Minimal-Electro approach of “Kids Alone,” as well as the seamless cross-pollination between Post-Punk and Implant’s Electronic universe throughout the release. “Spiritchaser” adds an unexpectedly danceable dimension, further broadening the scope of the project.
In my opinion, every track—except perhaps the final one—feels like a genuine experience. This release sounds less like a remix EP and more like an entirely new album by what almost feels like a new band, one that ultimately convinces me even more than the original versions themselves. (Rating:7½).
Listen to “Kids Alone (Late Night)”:
About The Ultimate Dreamers
The Ultimate Dreamers are a Belgian post-punk and cold wave band originating from Lessines in Hainaut province and now based in Brussels. The group first came together as teenagers in the mid-1980s, writing and recording a series of home and rehearsal-room demos between roughly 1986 and 1990 and playing shows in the local scene without releasing a studio album at the time. Those early recordings resurfaced decades later and were compiled as “The Ultimate Dreamers – Live Happily While Waiting For Death“, issued on digital, CD and vinyl formats.
From 2022 onward, The Ultimate Dreamers shifted their centre of operations to Brussels and joined the Spleen+ roster, the post-punk / cold wave division of Alfa Matrix. They released the “Polarized EP” and the two-track single “Polarized / I Loved You?!”, which prepared the ground for their first new studio album “Echoing Reverie” in March 2023. In parallel, the band contributed a cover of The Cure’s “Lovesong” to the Alfa Matrix / Spleen+ compilation “A Strange Play (Vol. 2) – Tribute to The Cure” , with their version of The Cure’s “Lovesong”.
Following “Echoing Reverie”, the group issued the “Violent Ghost” EP with alternative versions and remixes by artists such as Front 242, Shad Shadows and Hørd. In late 2023 they appeared on the seven-disc post-punk anthology “Resurgence”. The singles “Digging” and “Spiritchaser” mapped the route toward their second modern full-length “Paradoxical Sleep” (February 7, 2025).
“Paradoxal Implants” extends that chapter as a Len Lemeire project on Spleen+, gathering his full reconstructions of six “Paradoxical Sleep” tracks into a digital EP that reshapes the band’s post-punk material through Implant’s electronic approach.
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