Dreamcatcher Entertains With Solo Work As Late Summer Plans Unfold

Summer is heading into its later months as August rolls around with it, as far as Dreamcatcher is concerned, comes a bit of curiosity from the fanbase insofar as the group’s plans. While we’ve seen that August and September appear to be fille with travel and live performances and an English remake album on the horizon as well, there’s always, not surprisingly, a desire to hear about more. As always, however, we’re seeing a decent amount of content from the group, and last week was no exception. Let’s get right into it!

In a bit of a throwback (if you can call last year around the holidays that), we got a long-delayed upload as Gahyeon put up her first vlog from her trip to Japan in December with a couple of friends. There were plenty of pictures from this trip that were posted by Dreamcatcher’s youngest member, but no notion that we’d see a vlog, especially as the month was also filled with a bunch of individual special clips that served as a convenient distraction. As such, this was an unexpected (and fun) surprise. It’s probably been awhile since we’ve seen a Dreamcatcher VLOG that was a “slice of life” type vlog, and seeing the banter and camaraderie between Gahyeon and her friends was funny and entertaining. It definitely feels like Gahyeon is on a content-making streak lately and that she’s getting her desire not to do “same-y” vlogs, and it shows.

Another bit of content that made its return this past week was Yoohyeon’s gaming livestreams. It’s been quite some time since the last gaming livestream that Yoohyeon did, so everyone was certainly looking forward to Yoohyeon’s (mis)adventures playing a bunch of games. There was a bit of technical difficulty at first (lag and performance, mostly), but Yoohyeon soon got to gaming. The highlights were Yoohyeon trying to get used to (and subsequently dying repeatedly in) indie games AltF4 and Last Neighbor, filled with plenty of humorous moments as Yoohyeon attempted to figure out game mechanics and not die a terribly huge amount.

As meticulous and a self-proclaimed perfectionist as Yoohyeon is, I’m actually kind of surprised that she walks into many of these games blind, without playing them beforehand, but perhaps that’s a personal choice that makes things a bit more fun for the stream. There was also a quick tease for potentially team-based gaming content in the future when Gahyeon, who’s engaged in her own gaming livestream, called in to encourage Yoohyeon and to maybe participate in a future broadcast. All in all, part of making a gaming livestream work is the streamer seeming like they’re having fun and being entertaining, and Yoohyeon definitely has that in spades.

Last, but certainly not least was brand new Dreamcatcher individual member content, this time coming from the group’s Main Rapper, Dami. Called “Dam Tok Bang”, the first episode had Dami give a long-awaited tour of her personal studio, which she uses to produce and write music. Fans have known for a while that Dami and Siyeon both pay for studios to do a bit of work on their own, so it was really neat to get a look inside a space that Dami says she spends a lot of time in. Elements like her precious laptop with stickers where she keeps a bunch of her work, a recently purchased guitar that she hopes to play on stage one day, and more pepper the studio - and we even got a quick preview of a song that Dami has been working on, a chill kind of tune featuring her soft vocals.

It really seems that Dami is interested in the songwriting and producing part of the industry, and the multiple songs she’s contributed to Dreamcatcher’s discography, one of which (“New Days”) is now a fixture in concert tour sets, seem to show that she has the talent and dedication to keep at it. The more she gets into this work for Dreamcatcher, the more than I’m just happy that we’re seeing Dreamcatcher’s members overall branch out into different things on their own to show off their individual talents and interests. I’ll be looking forward to the next Dam Tok Bang to see what else Dami has in store for us.

For all the individual content that we’ve been seeing, the group stuff keeps on coming out as well. Dreamquest, the latest photobook release to be put out along with the Dreamlantis official merchandise package, dropped in its own concept trailer this past week. I really thought we’d be seeing a bit more of a fantasy or sword-and-sorcery-type theme for this, given what media I’d seen so far, but it seems I was wrong. The trailer seemed to have a modern, whimsical feel for it, with the group clad in hats, carrying suitcases, and dressed sharply in a mix of modern business and casual wear in a rustic setting. Equipped with binoculars, a telescope, and maps, it seemed very much a treasure-hunting or adventurer theme to me, and that was intriguing. Like Love Stealer, Love Catcher, and the rest of the photobooks we know are out there, this will likely be a bit of a bigger box and set of photos which will no doubt be the same high-quality we’ve come to expect.

Speaking of which, the inclusions for both the Dreamlantis official merchandise and Dreamquest photobook were also revealed right before pre-orders commenced for the two items. Out of what we know, the most intriguing elements are the new items - a wood stamp and curiously-shaped outer  box for Dreamlantis, for example, and a full-on board game for Dreamquest. The pricing is also vastly different - while Dreamquest appears to be priced as expected for historical photobooks at around 48,000 KRW, Dreamlantis’ price seems a bit expensive at 98,000 KRW for what will seem, with the exception of a choice of white or black eco bags, to be a bit smaller in size and scale. Production costs and the perceived appeal of these items likely drive the price point, so we’ll just have to see if fans (especially international ones who also have to pay shipping and potentially VAT import) balk at Dreamlantis’ higher price or not.

Either way, the way I see it and have always said, more revenue streams and opportunities for Dreamcatcher are not a bad thing, and with historical trends to go on, it’s likely that we’ll see both of these in stock for a while to come yet. Fans watching for pre-order bonuses and fansign events have gotten their wish, and a couple of vendors are also holding drawings for signed polaroids as well as for fansigns both online and offline. Late September release will mean we don’t see unboxing videos (unless released by the company) until much later, but I’ll look forward to what people see when they have their hands on the contents.

Until then, August is here and next week’s report will likely have some details about JUMF 2023, where the group is slated to return to perform on day 1 of the festival, and we may not doubt see even more content from the group. As usual, you’ll see that next Sunday, so for all that and more for Dreamcatcher news, I’ll see you then!