#sleep eater

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[everoutoftouch]

Cereal in the shape of ghosts melting in your milk, melting in your mouth.

Fruit loops look like inner-tubes.

In your grandma's pool were you floating around?

Were you dreaming about the graveyard?

If you were, I'll sleepwalk there with you,

I dig tombstones too.

[meganomaly]

Keep me up all night ...

[amoresomnia]

and the beast that rests below my eyes

inside its nest, forms bags, comprised

of all the sleep it eats at night

oh to beg for morning’s light.

[emmyewesseyesee]

slothrust – “sleep eater”

gorgeously brooding and building, and ultimately rewardingly bombastic and explosive, slothrust’s “sleep eater” starts out tender and tentative, fragile-plucked guitar looking to pick a careful path through the silence and broach its sleep demons. leah wellbaum’s opening vocal adds an initial softness of story, backed by unhurried bass and a languid, almost indulgent drum pattern to gently coax, comfort and soft-focus support.

just before the minute-thirty mark, this soothing, benign, inoffensive introduction gives way to an arresting and expansive affront of more rock-like proportions that see wellbaum’s voice adopt a more masculine, less empathetic pitch and tone as she is joined by will gorin’s tumbling drum-rolls and pace-setting rides, and kyle bann’s tremolo pulsating bass-lines. this new impetus adds both verve and toughness, and is addictively impatient as it grows evermore restless. when drums and bass eventually drop out and baton-pass to wellbaum’s guitar to carry the theme, her dirtily clarion chords add an excitable energy and demand fresh attention as she drags her band-mates back to the fray with her uncomfortably urgent yet deceptively elegant “come on, fellas!” key-change – and huge credit must go to bann for his impeccably taut production in realising this irresistible musical moment. as the track reaches its epic denouement, wellbaum soars to new androgynous-hollering heights, the accompaniment winding ever higher before ultimately breaking up around her and freeing her to take her abrupt if once more fragile leave.

all-in-all it’s a marvelous and mellifluous effort, and cj riehl, emmy kenny and d.o.p. johanna brooks’s finely observed video adds yet further crashing delight to the atmosphere of surreal and seditious seduction, bringing with it a fascinating mix of dream-like fragility, fantasy, frisson, fumbling, fracas and frenzy. autumn colours, tender touches, guilty glances and tempting dances all combine to wonderful effect in telling such a rewarding and intriguing back-story of an impulsive, insistent, blossoming romance.

in closing, i’ll leave you with a couple of rather punchier slothrust efforts from their most recent album, everyone else, courtesy of smash-and-grab “surf goth” and reflect-and-rebel “trial & error”. both smartly and expansively belie their 1.5 minute stature. what’s not to like?

[bongwateronthevancarpet]

Wovoka - “Sleep Eater” 2014

[callmeblake]

SLOTHRUST - Sleep Eater 

lesbians :) so cute

[iheartmoosiq]

I’m probably going to be totally exhausted by the time Slothrust tours through San Francisco on March 22nd, since I would’ve just returned from my visit to Austin for SXSW, but I still plan on making my way out to catch the Brooklyn based band at Bottom of the Hill. After all, I’ve been obsessing over Slothrust’s third album, Everyone Else, ever since it’s release last fall. Apart for my undying love for stand out track Horseshoe Crab, I’m also in love with this song, Sleep Eater. A new music video for the song affords us all the perfect chance to partake in Slothrust’s raw but melodic disquietude and scuzzy thrashing rock. Slothrust’s album Everyone Else is out digitally on iTunes. You can also purchase it on CD/LP, here.