sleepy.ab - archive 6 February 2008
Despite the way it’s written, the post-rock band ‘sleepy.ab’ pronounces their name simply as ‘sleepy’. The ‘ab’ tacked on to the end is short for ‘abstract’, the implication being that it characterizes their shoegaze style of music. And it’s accurate. Their rock is not the kind that attempts to blow out your speakers and your ear-drums. There’s no slamming drum solos or thrashing guitar distortion. Instead sleepy.ab gradually builds on the melody of each song slowly and methodically, adding layer after layer, weaving them in between Tsuyoshi Nariyama’s soft vocals. Personally, sleepy.ab reminds me of the Feather Side, although sleepy.ab leans more towards a drifting, ethereal, “wait—how long have I been listening to this?” kind of sound.Also like the Feather Side, sleepy.ab makes some long songs. And archive is a great example of that. No song is shorter than five minutes, and including the two bonus live recordings the twelve-track album runs for ninety-two minutes. More than once you may think the album has changed tracks only to look and see that, no, actually you’re listening to a nine-minute song that has a brief pause. However, this expansive length suits sleepy.ab perfectly. Listeners who enjoy their wandering, self-exploratory ambient rock will find that it can distort one’s sense of time. By the time you finish archive there’s equal chances you could think forty minutes have passed or three hours, and be happy in either case.Existing fans of sleepy.ab will notice that archive contains some of their older songs such as ‘Scene’ and ‘inside’. These are ‘new takes’, as the album itself describes them. For those of you who have never heard sleepy.ab before, this is a great album to start with in my opinion.In either case, I hope you enjoy the album! Feedback and requests always welcome, of course.And yes, I realize in retrospect my attempt to describe the album reads like nonsense from an emo-teen’s LiveJournal account from 2002.