Who/what is Dreamcastle?

To be best of my ability to understand it, Dreamcastle is a location/pocket-universe/liminal space where lost things and forgotten memories end up, particularly emotions, experiences, and knowledge that becomes in danger of being forgotten. One can only access this place by two means – being called to the Dreamcastle at a time when you desperately need to remember something (about your life and sense of self). The other is through these albums that I've uploaded online, though it is a visit only through audio and blurred visuals.

Majisto the wizard, and many curators before him, were chosen by the Dream Castle to catalogue and maintain the archives in solitude. The Dream Castle is a living breathing entity that grows and expands, filled with endless chambers, halls, galleries, and dungeons. Within, one can find portals to exciting worlds of adventures, as well as memories stored in glass jars, and toys we lost in our early childhood. Strange entities and ghosts also roam the halls, though I do not fully understand their origin. In fact, as I put out this music, I'm only slowly grasping the idea of the Dreamcastle as a whole. The parts that fascinate me most are those that contain ephemera from the 1980s-2005, but there are more things to uncover, beyond count. I feel that my listeners and I are slowly discovering it together.

What is your earliest memory of lego?

They've always been around, so it's hard to say, but I definitely remember my brothers having legos, just small space sets here and there, and i was pretty jealous of them and wanted to hog them all for myself. I had duplo blocks which I remember not liking much.

I will never forgot my first set. 5928 Bi-Wing Baron, from the Adventurers theme. I was about 6 or 7. There is something so magical about looking at the box art and instructions at that age. To someone so young it really feels like gazing into an entire world, full of thrill and mystery. I get a small amount of that feeling when I gaze at those catalog images today.

What was the most difficult part of the project?

Learning Blender 3D. it was a skillset that was completely out of my comfort zone, as a 2D artist. but it became clear at some point that it was the best way to recreate the worlds of Lego Castle.

I was specifically trying to recreate the box art I've been so enamoured with since my childhood, along with the "shop videos" (stop-motion animations of lego scenes that would play in lego retail stores in the late 80s and early 90s). I dove pretty deeply into researching what exactly made those videos and photographs look the way they looked, and uncovered some really fascinating new things. But yeah – blender was crazy hard to learn. but thanks to free tutorials, it really started to come together.

So you learnt blender for the sole purpose of telling this story?

Yes, though I've had for a long time a desire to learn blender for my own personal creative expression. it was so daunting to me, and required really thinking differently – in three dimensions no less! this seemed like the perfect time to learn, particularly with a narrowed down goal.

Another thing that turned me on to the idea of learning Blender now was watching some incredibly creative YouTubers utilise blender in a way I had never imagined. Worthikids, an amazingly prolific animator, put out a short called CAPTAIN YAJIMA made to look like a vintage 1960s/70s stop motion animation. The way they mimick the look of the past with new tech was absolutely mind-blowing and charming to me. Similarly, another filmmaker and youtuber Kane Pixels used Blender to recreate an entire 1980s mall in a fascinatingly convincing way.

Tell us about Majisto...

‍Majisto the Wizard is a lego minifigure that was released in 1993, and I think he was the first named minifigure. within Dreamcastle lore, he is the wise, magical, and jolly curator of the Dreamcastle's archives, where lost and obscure memories and objects are kept safe from vanishing, but only accessible to those who need to remember something important about themselves.

Overall, he's my favorite minifigure – I think because his design is so simple and perfectly emblematic of lego itself: the "magic" of creation, imagination, and spontaneity that lego stands for. He organically became the mascot of Dreamcastle, I suppose because he is who I want to be: always spontaneous and imaginative, chill, and having adventures. In a way he is my avatar when I delve into this space, and I hoped he could become the avatar of those who listen to my work and experience their own sense of curiosity and magic.

Did the project start with the scale and grandeur that we see in the finished thing?

‍Dreamcastle overall has organically grown over time. I'e always considered it something I do on the side, when my main pursuits (writing my novel) aren't going well. but the interest in it really blew up over time, and in turn I've put more effort into it, just for the fun of it.

LEGO CASTLE started as a challenge to myself to make a vaporwave album without sampling, just synths and royalty-free sfx. Big challenge all on it's own. There were going to be simple visuals in the video, but it definitely grew huge as I realised more ideas, and finally settled on the idea of putting it in the format of an old 90s kids show, similar to Jim Henson's The Storyteller series. These things tend to happen a lot... my ideas get too huge, much to my detriment. But I feel such a drive to see my imagination become real, and if I succeed, it's incredibly satisfying.

What do you think is the most important aspect of an online immersive storytelling experience?

Good question...

I'd say the feeling of being invited into the story, as a main character. you personally get to solve the mystery, and encounter each obstacle and wonder. It makes it feel more personal I guess. I'm not sure why that's what I'm drawn to, but maybe the influence of choose-your-own adventure books, or video game RPGs where you are given a lot of choices as to the outcome of the story – those always gave you a thrilling feeling of immersion.

From the perspective of the one creating it, I also enjoy watching people come together to solve something – like a communal experience. And you, the curator, get to enjoy those feeling of surprise with them all over again.

Why do you think we remember things for children fondly? Because we are genuinely more imaginative back then?

I do think that's it. Developmentally, as children we have this ability to completely suspend our disbelief as we play, and it's a powerful tool for understanding the world (not an expert in this, but that's what I've noticed from things I've read). The firsts that we experience as kids are often truly visceral experiences of pure emotions, memories seared into our minds. We can get an absolute thrill from a silly cartoon or show, or from a lego set, because we don't have the greater experience or jadedness that we do as adults. Of course, we don't realise this at the time, as kids. Not till we are adults, and that part of our life is all over.

I am very much aware that I'm always chasing that "freshly new" feeling again of discovering something for the first time as kids. and the grief of realising it can't happen is what fuels Dreamcastle.

Tell us more about your novel...

Enter the Dream Castle is a tie-in-novel to the album of the same name. As I curated Enter the Dream Castle, a story slowly seemed to rise out of the various scenes. Later, I decided to expand upon it in long form – thus the short novel. The novel invites you, the reader, to the Dream Castle, leading you through various halls, revisiting scenes from your past and favourite toys and shows. Eventually, a dark presence begins to pursue you. Running from it, you find the only way to escape is to venture deep into the most dangerous parts of the Dream Castle.

I think a theme I keep returning to in my work is the darkness within happy memories. Everything we experience in life is this mix of beauty and ugliness, and the tension there fascinates me. My short novel is no different is this respect.

Can you tell us anything about upcoming projects?

As I've told several people now, I honestly never know if the Dreamcastle project I'm working on is going to be my last. I stumbled into this, and I create whenever something moves me to. So far though, four years later, it is still going, even though a couple of times I didn't think it would.

That said, I do have some ideas for future projects. I don't know if I could put as much effort into them as I did Lego Castle, but I love the idea of doing albums for Lego PIRATES, Lego SPACE, Lego TOWN, and Lego Timecruisers.

I've also been working on a few story ideas – they may become video series, they may become albums, they may even become an ARG (augmented reality game). I'm not sure. Inly time will tell.

Aside from Dreamcastle, I have been working on a novel under a different name. I think that people who like Dreamcastle may even like this as well.

What is the best way for fans to support your incredible storytelling projects?

Watch the videos on YouTube (which I consider my main platform), then tell friends about them. Spread joy. Find me on Bandcamp.

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