Heal the soul with the psychedelic sounds of Dream Machine. Traveling from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the band started their North American tour in March.  “Fine Me Again” tour introduced the heavy psychedelic progressive pop band’s music to El Paso at Mona Bar on March 9.

Lead singer Matthew Melton sings alongside his wife Doris Melton who plays keyboard.

“We started back in 2016 and Matt and I really wanted to play together, and we were living in Austin, TX at the time,” Doris Melton said,” It was a really good psych scene there and it just kind of grew naturally out of our desire to start a band together and if we were really inspired by bands from the 70’s, like Atomic Rooster and Beggars Opera and those beat club videos where you just see people with their own homemade amps and where you’re like woah what are they doing? They’re experimenting with so much different gear.”

According to Dream Machine’s website, they use a tuning of A=432Hz which is a way for some to heal the soul. Releasing their latest single “Find Me Again”, set off the theme of the tour. The band started off the night with their song, “The illusion”, and in total performed 14 songs.

 Doris Melton explains their duo method of creating songs.

“We (are) kind of creating something and then we bounce it off to the other person. So, Matt and I work together to write all the songs and sometimes it’ll start on an acoustic piano. I’ll come up with a melody and then I’ll hand it over to Matt to find it off, or it’s the other way around,” Doris Melton said.

Not only does Dream Machine take inspiration of 70’s bands musically, but also aesthetically. The bassist of Dream Machine Joost van Eck was dressed in 70’s-esque style with a black vest, pink button up and scarf. As well as Doris Melton who wore a white sequence dress with a wide gold belt and giving to the theme of 70’s apparel.

As the rise of streaming platforms and social media, some independent bands may discover hardship in the modern music industry.

“It’s really crazy because even as little as ten years ago, not every band was on Instagram, for instance, back then it was Facebook,” Doris Melton said.  “It was transitioning from my space, but it’s interesting because when you’re in a dependent artist, you’re kind of shifted to where now you to be your own promoter, booker, whatever you name it.”

These days music can be consistent in the same genre or style especially on social media.

“Sometimes it can feel like it’s over saturated so it’s hard to get out there so it’s an interesting new day and age for sure.” Doris said

Ending the night off with the song “Top of Creation” healed soul of the listeners at Mona Bar. To hear more from the band, Dream Machine can be found on Spotify and on Instagram @dreammachineband.

Avery Escamilla-Wendell is the arts & culture and may be reached at [email protected] or Instagram @by_avery_escamilla