Sydney post-rock four-piece sleepmakeswaves have built on their earlier work to craft their first full length record, containing eight tracks with 52 minutes of instrumental bliss that is helping them get attention around the globe.
Drums, dynamics and melody. These are the fundamental building blocks of ‘…and so we destroyed everything’, but with each listen you develop a greater appreciation of the subtle, and not so subtle, construction techniques. An ever-present layer of electronics lies under the whole record, there is some spoken word, a pinch of vocals, violin, and trumpet. And of course there’s lashings of melodic guitar and bass. The record includes three long songs and they work well. I think sleepmakeswaves would be capable of writing a great 20 to 30 minute song.
The eight minute opening track ‘to you they are birds, to me they are voices in the forest’ is constructed around a phrase that several instruments take a turn in repeating. But it’s not as simple as that. We start with some electronic buzz before we launch into a strong three-chord guitar and drum-led exposition designed to wake you up. What follows is a progression of developments of the theme, from heavy and loud metal-inspired guitar riffs, to drums, to the beautiful and uplifting violin reminiscent of their magnificent song from 2008 ‘one day you will teach me to let go of your fears’.
The next track is very different. No dynamics – just great full guitar for four minutes. It’s a contrast that works well.
More contrast as electronics come to the fore in ‘our time is short but your watch is slow’, a delicate twinkling with gentle waves of bass beneath a beautiful guitar melody. This one reminds me of ‘A Northern Chorus’ minus the vocals.
All this prepares us for ‘a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun’. The song builds slowly, the timing perfect, with spoken word so faint it can barely be heard, then a rolling, swaying guitar that takes us to the first moments of quiet in the eleven minute song. The synth starts the process of building things again, this time travelling through a hint of trumpet, reaching a crescendo of frenetic drumming and chugging metal guitar before another abrupt end to the noise. The final passage builds again; more brilliant drumming and loud guitar, this time with four false cadences before we fade with more of that wonderful trumpet. I like this track a lot, although I think the guitar passage immediately before the second climax could have been longer.
It’s about this time that a lot of records will hit the doldrums, but not in this case. ‘(hello) cloud mountain’ is a much shorter song of pure happiness and light – a great pop feel with more of the fast drumming we heard a minute or two ago. The way this drumming ties together two songs of such contrast is superb.
Track six is just under seven minutes of the kind of chiming guitar post-rock fans are all familiar with before electronics take the baton in ‘we like it when you’re awkward’ for the short lead in to the title track finale.
The mood is more sombre entering into the twelve and a half minute closer, the mood and pace again driven by the drums. It shifts from fast and light to slow and heavy, light to shade, doomy metal riffs to galloping open chords and back. The closing minutes even give us some pulled-back vocals suggestive of Alcest. This time there is no dramatic explosive finish, but gradually the instruments drop out of the race to end with a gentle single guitar string.
It’s impossible for me to listen to this record without seeing the image of one of their fans at a recent sleepmakeswaves gig so absolutely immersed in every note and every drumbeat of their performance. With nothing to sing along to, he happily smacked away at the air drums, ran up to the stage and back in synch with the dynamics of each song, leaping around and punching the air before restraining himself in the quiet passages. He was in heaven, and I know just how he felt.
Available now throughBandcamp
Echo Rating (((????•)))
Posted by Gilbert Potts
