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Sleepyard — Head Values
(Apollon Records AP104, 2022, CD / LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2022-07-25

Head Values Cover art

With Sleepyard, the listener is asked to set aside whatever is going on in the outside world, suspend time, and just experience each moment as it happens. This is not music for people with places to be or worries in mind. The tracks on Head Values are not generally very long, but they are gauzy, languid affairs, full of textural shifts and hazy melodies rather than structured progressions. While most of the music floats along without much in the way of percussion, you will encounter sections where the tempo picks up and drums (real and/or programmed) appear to move things along. A strong comparison can be drawn with Talk Talk’s later work, and there’s also a similarity to Harmonia, where most of the tracks are constructed rather simply as explorations of a limited set of ideas. “Falling in Love” stands as a rare nod to what might broadly be called songcraft, with a chord progression and lyrics sung by Sandy Dedrick. As always, the brothers Kersbergen are at the helm, with Oliver contributing guitar, keyboards, vocals, harmonica, bass, sitar, and field recordings and Svein on keyboards and vocals. The list of guest contributors is somewhat smaller than on previous releases: the previously mentioned Dedrick, Mark Refoy (guitar, beats), Katje Janisch (vocals, flutes, cello, melodica, bowed glockenspiel), Kjetil Manheim (percussion), Gaute Storsve (bass, pedal steel), and Edvard Andreas Feed (guitar), some of whom appear only on a single track. Overall, it is a serene mood that pervades Head Values, with a subdued energy borne of beauty that avoids being cloying due to the touches of subtle discord buried in the mix. Sleepyard’s music rewards repeated listens and close attention, though it can function as ambient background as well.

Filed under: New releases, 2022 releases

Related artist(s): Sleepyard, Gaute Storsve

More info
http://sleepyard.bandcamp.com/album/head-values

 

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