A soundtrack for a trip to the Land of Nod as heaven, hell and a lot of purgatory by turns, Sleepwald is a series of dreams drawn in thick pastel crayons.
A soundtrack for a trip to the Land of Nod as heaven, hell and a lot of purgatory by turns, Sleepwald is a series of dreams drawn in thick pastel crayons. Fat with resonance and line, Karsten Pflum has taken a consistent, minimalist approach, with the opening, “Sleepwald 4,” reminiscent of Eno’s Neroli heard across a windswept plain. Vinyl crackle over tolling church bells lends “Diggers” a strangely funereal cast. “Vere” on the other hand is lively and joyful.
Just like dreams, the illogic spins out like a book of fractured fairy tales, fables that share common elements but wreak havoc on detail, mood and sequence. “FM Sleep” is whimsical and reassuring, but is immediately followed by the nightmare of “C52,” a clown’s sneer being reflected and multiplied in a doorless room covered in fun-house mirrors. “Plim Mill Wall” continues the fiendish carnival theme, a twisted calliope’s bending notes so disorienting the dreamer stumbles into the overcrowded fog of “Sleepwald 6” and is forced to breathe its anesthetic air, which provides no analgesic relief whatsoever from the giant mosquito air raid that drones unforgivingly on “Sleepwald 3.” “Dopplereffect” is the hangover that comes after, trying to read the time on a soft Salvador Dalí pocket watch, and “Bat Magick” is its clockwork exploding and dripping through your fingers.
Although similarly disorienting, “Bare Demon” and “Crazy Law” are diabolically soothing, floating rudderless on an inland salt sea in a featureless environment until swept into the eddy of “Ubaad Ramp.” Fortunately all’s well that ends well as the dreamer sidles up to the shores of consciousness via “Perfects Creek” and a slow, hazy, but safe awakening.
Sleepwald is available on Hymen. [Release page | Bandcamp]
