Sleep Party People

Floating

Written by: HES on 25/11/2014 18:54:05

I must admit that I was never one of the followers of Sleep Party People. In my world they've mainly been one of those Danish bands I always saw on posters, but never really listened to. But after discovering that bands on said posters actually sometimes deserve praise, by my way too late discovery of Reptile Youth this summer, I thought I'd give it a go. Turns out that Sleep Party People is a very befitting name for the project i subjected myself to, but in the most brilliant way.

"Floating" is a pretty short album below the industry standard of 10 tracks. However this is only a selling point as unlike many other albums all tracks seem very intentional and distinct. Many other albums end up having two to three "fillers" and even on the best records there's always this one song that is your least favorite. But by opting for a more wholesome album primarily based more on an overall sensation, rather than a staccato mix of singular tracks, "Floating" takes you on a hypnotic journey through a sleeping cityscape - very subtly implying a narrative, but one that's too abstract to fully get your hands on.

One of the finesses of "Floating" is a superb use of classical fixtures like elongated, sombre piano in the mix of art-rock synth creating a strangely naive but dark universe. I could fill you with genre-lingo like "dream pop", "art rock" or "ambient rock", but I'd rather describe the album as a "meditation" or as above-mentioned "a journey". I usually don't really care for art rock - it really is a hit or miss genre; art being subjective and all. But I get the same tingling feelings as when I reviewed Sigur Rós' "Kveikur" from 2013 where I found myself completely blown away by both the simplicity and the grandeur, and similar things are at play here in “Floating”s limited confinements. The longing, the haunted dreams, the melancholy and ecstasy all bound together in "Floating" are so delicately woven, that it's hard to put a finger on it apart from the obvious: It's quiet, it's introvert and it's strange, and really it's just totally worth it to submerge yourself in Brian Batz' fish tank full of dreamy, floating, harmonious sounds.

Download: Change In Time, Death is the Future, In Another World, Only A Shadow
For The Fans Of: Thom Yorke, Sigur Rós, Broken Social Scene
Listen: facebook

Release date 02.06.2014
Alarm Music

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