Sleep Terror - Probing Tranquility
Sleep Terror sound like if Necrophagist and Primus had a child and raised it on surf music and schmaltzy jazz. That would probably be horrible, wouldn't it? But at high enough speeds, neoclassical riffs, diminished arpeggios, and rubbery, slap-happy tones somehow make sense together. Right now, the band is one guy, Luke Jaeger, on guitar, bass, and keys. I'm not surprised he's without a drummer at the moment - few are this nuts.Hypersomnia RationaleHypnogogic Qualm
I admit, I still don't understand why people make this kind of music. But it's practically its own genre now ("seizure core"?), with Behold...The Arctopus, Psyopus, The Faceless, Dillinger Escape Plan (some), and Buckethead as patron saint. I suppose it has a math-y, epileptic appeal, like if you tensed up really hard and somehow willed those Matrix falling numbers to rain down on you. Metal has come a long (and very strange) way since Sabbath.
A Sleep Terror release is supposedly due out early 2008 on Blackmarket Activities. I don't know if it'll be a reissue of Probing Tranquility (Feeling Faint, 2006), or if it's new material. Evidently, artist and label have beef - according to this, Jaeger isn't seeing any royalties from the album, and ordering from the label is an uncertain proposition. However, every distro seems to be out of it, so you'll have to get it at Feeling Faint's Myspace. Or, contact Sleep Terror via its MySpace, where you can also buy demo tracks digitally.
Labels: avant-garde metal, clee, death metal, usa
5 Comments:
I was calling it 'spaz grind' for a long time. No idea why anyone so capable would write more than one or maybe two songs of this sort of music too, but occasionally it can be really enjoyable under the right circumstances for the listener.
Saying that capable players/composers should strive to attach aesthetic charge and meaning to their music sounds like something a fascist would say, yeah?
why? is aestheticism not what art is all about? If art is not aesthetic it is not art, its kitsch. Nothing fascist about it.
Well, this music obviously has aesthetic meaning to its creators and fans (of which I am one sometimes). I'm just still trying to figure out what that meaning is.
Wading into something I know little about - kitsch seems to me purely subjective. One man's junk is another man's treasure, etc.
Kitsch has a dignity all of its own. I don't think there' such safe distinctions when we're dealing with the mutablility of art and impression thereof. I was being a bit facetious with the fascist comment, I don't know really. If someone told me 'YOU should strive for aesthetic charge and meaning in your music!' I'd tell them 'fuck off, art police'.
I prefer Heavy Metal by people who aren't amazing virtuosos mainly because they have to try very hard to play their parts and this puts a physiological limit to wankery. One may compare Fates Warning - 'Awaken the Guardian' with Dream Theater - 'When Dream and Day Unite' to spot the difference between the two modes of thinking (strive to do something hard because I must, and doing something hard because I am in love with my fingers going fast) very cleary, in the inception of the progressive metal genre.
Not to say this is self-absorbed wankery or something. I actually found the Sleep Terror songs here and on MySpace to be very micro-composed material (meaning no bullshit fretruns just for flash, very neat patterns and really adventurous guitarring. Similar to Ron Jarzombek stuff) but not a lot of thought paid to meso/macro structure. It's interesting in its building materials, but it doesn't fractalise well working towards he whole (the meaning does not carry to the bigger 'song' picture, sorry if this isn't very clear. Compare a Bach fugue to Vivaldi).
Actually this sort of music is very physical, it's like an assault, I bet its really exciting to play if you can do it and that's a bit an end in itself. Probably gets one off on a huge feeling of domination and bewildering power. Have you noticed it's always more interesting to see this music being played on a video than just hear it? Very athletic, x-treme sports almost in this way.
The random word verification for this comment was : "aidwulf" . Awesome.
I'm kind of into the whole spazzcore or whatever you wanna call it, um, thing/aesthetic/movement right now. Part of that comes from having heard the new Dillinger Escape Plan disc, which is unbelievably brilliant. Parts of it sound like Calculating Infinity if they'd gotten Squarepusher to produce, but then there are songs that have almost radio-friendly riffs (that appear more than twice, so you can almost follow the song and even "rock out" to it.) Another part of it is that the stuff doesn't really demand close listening; in fact, you can just put it on in headphones and wander around, going about your day, as your heart rate gradually increases and increases until eventually it bursts through your chest and runs away, like the head that grew spider legs in John Carpenter's The Thing.
I think you can't really talk about this stuff, though, without talking about Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Octis). He's a huge influence on all these bands, and in fact guests on the next Behold...The Arctopus CD (as does Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater - it's a prog-spazz confluence...fans of slow and contemplative music, hide yourselves before it's too late!). What's interesting to me is that in his own music, Barr seems to have moved beyond the whole spazzy lightning-speed ninety-new-riffs-per-minute stuff. Orthrelm's last disc, OV, was a maddening exercise in what I'd call "minimalism in overdrive," after all. It's only when he's guesting (as on the Behold... album, or with the Flying Luttenbachers) that he cuts loose in that way these days.
Interesting also to see Ron Jarzombek mentioned immediately above. He's also got a new album coming out under the name Blotted Science, with Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse on bass and Charlie Zeleny of Behold...The Arctopus on drums. I've heard it, and it's plenty fuckin' spazzy. Highly recommended.
Post a Comment
<< Home