Corey Cunningham, a West Coast guitarist and songwriter whose résumé includes stints in several prominent groups, channels his introspective and lyrically dark sensibility through Business of Dreams by wedding bright indie pop hooks to glossy eighties production values. Prior to debuting the project in 2017 he had already logged nearly two decades of band activity, contributing guitar and songwriting to the indie pop outfit Magic Bullets, the power pop-meets-punk trio Terry Malts, and the classic indie pop unit Smokescreens.
The impetus for Business of Dreams was Cunningham’s need to process his father’s death, prompting him to adopt homemade synth pop and eighties pop as the project’s guiding aesthetic. His first album, issued on his own Parked in Hell label in 2017, explored loss and despair atop gleaming synth washes, clunky drum-machine rhythms, and his plaintive croon. After forming a live band and playing a handful of shows, he joined Mike Krol’s touring ensemble while simultaneously developing a second Business of Dreams record that incorporated more sampling and filtered his soft indie pop material through late-eighties production techniques. Slumberland Records released the resulting album, Ripe for Anarchy, in early 2019.
