Sleep Whale – Houseboat (Music Review)
By Andrew Duncan • Dec 9th, 2009 • Category: Categories, Indie Pop, ReviewsSleep Whale
Houseboat
Western Vinyl
Rating: 4 out of 5
Links:
Sleep Whale on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/sleepwhale
Western Vinyl: http://westernvinyl.com/
What are you doing to me Sleep Whale? I feel like my insides are exploding outward. “Green Echo” makes me feel like I’m riding the stairway to heaven with their ethereal instrumental that climbs higher and higher. I only wish I had this song to accompany me when I spent days on end ascending the long escalator climb at the Dupont stop on the Washington DC Metro. Anyone who knows this will agree that the journey upward before surfacing is a long one, yet there is something glorious about the experience.
What the band Antarctica did to a cold, winter day, Sleep Whale does to a glowing spring day. And where space in the music is usually a good thing for a style like what you will find within Houseboat, the constant fluttering of notes play a more important role to the essence of this album.
From the beginning, you sense degrees of glitchiness, sometimes sounding like the digital quality is skipping even though it is not, and other times the sampled effect give it a false stuttering for effect. I was in fear that it would become annoying and hinder the release as this effect did not lie in just one song. Luckily, the effect works. Brought to the background of a song like “Roof Sailing” or the nerves of the violin getting the best of it on “Dissolved” all play into the feeling of renewal and the birth of something greater. With “Light Tunnel” the strobe effect is brought out to the forefront for all to gaze into.
Even though vocals try to escape from the presence of instrumental pieces and create a psychedellic effect with “We Were Dripping” and “Still Drumming,” this is primarily an instrumental band who performs best that way. And although effective in the way they treat the vocals, I would rather just be whisped away by their lush foliage of sound.
I’m ready, Sleep Whale! Take me! Take me, now!
Andrew Duncan is a journalist who has migrated to the forces of academia. He has written for various publications including Chord, Heckler, Readyset...Aesthetic, and a vast array of alternative press contributions. When not roaming the streets of Indianapolis, he is either addicted to KXCI, making music, or striving to watch every film listed on IMDB.
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