Ståle Storløkken - The Haze of Sleeplessness [CD]

Hubro

£13.05

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: HUBROCD2616
Barcode: 7033662026166
Release Date: 11 Feb 2022
Genre: Experimental, Contemporary Jazz

Retro-futurist cinematic synth-fest from Supersilent keyboardist and composer. Just as radio drama is said to provide the best pictures, so some music can make for a perfect film soundtrack without the need for a film to exist at all. ’The Haze of Sleeplessness’ is a case in point: as the album starts to play, the listener’s imagination kicks in and does the rest, supplying the necessary plot, character and setting until a full-scale narrative unspools behind one’s eyes. A suite of seven movements whose common musical material is continuously recycled into new shapes and sounds, while recurring leitmotifs create a connecting thread of continuity, ’The Haze of Sleeplessness’ operates on several levels simultaneously. Most obviously, perhaps, it’s an unapologetic synth-fest; a love poem to old-school electronica and analogue sound whose squelches, bleeps and blurts can’t help but recall the heroic era of Wendy Carlos, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. It’s also a remarkably original and successful attempt at using by now antique instruments to form a true orchestral palette, building a symphony of sound through combining monophonic sources and their new digital variants into a densely populated audio landscape that is captured with astonishing sonic fidelity. The super-saturated surface of the music fairly crackles with raw electricity, as if the over-amped distortion was about to short-circuit itself, with a wobbly jack plug connection flickering dangerously before finally cutting out. That many of these sounds and their treatment can’t help but suggest the retro-futurist setting of a dystopian sci-fi thriller might make the cinematic analogy inevitable, but it doesn’t lessen the music’s power or cheapen its effect.

1. Prelude to the Haze of Sleeplessness (04:39) 2. Orange Drops (04:32) 3. Reality Box (01:54) 4. Stranded at Red Ice Desert. Remember Your Loved Ones (In memory of my dear mother) (04:04) 5. Turbulence (01:16) 6. Skyrocket Hotel (07:24) 7. Nitro Valley (08:21)

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