Sleeping Lion

Maybe it’s just because they are from Boston and make dreamy indie-electronic music with high-pitched vocal falsettos that I can’t shake comparisons to Passion Pit. But that’s too circumstantial to take seriously. No, these two roommates, Nate Flaks and Noah Longworth (better known as Sleeping Lion), just HAPPEN to be making dreamy indie-electronic music in Boston. Let’s just let the comparison die right there. These dudes are brilliant, taking the heartfelt indie songwriting and ramping up the production all the way. Passion Pit in the streets, Odessa in the sheets. I haven’t seen a combination like this yet, and I’m guessing neither has anyone else, considering these two only have 159 Soundcloud followers. Let’s fix that.

Rug is a slow-churning groove, with heartfelt lyrics and emotional piano cues. The vocals here are haunting and dark, hints of Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie) but with a nice and funky, yet brooding baseline rolling underneath it. This is R&B music for people who claim not like to like R&B music and are still stuck in early 2000’s indie rock cadence. Like this is how we trick people into experimenting with new sounds.

It’s on "You Made Me" that the boys show their range. This track is much bigger, with a hook on the vocal line that could (and probably will) get significant radio play. This track reminds me a lot more of Odesza, dipping closer into their future production bank than any other artist I can associate to. This song is big and fun and has pop hooks and melody, all while still being dark and haunting. It rides the line real well. A four quadrant hit we have on our hands here. Something indie darlings will fall in love with before it’s everywhere. Watch Sleeping Lion be on way too high of a line on the Coachella poster next year. "You Made Me" has that much potential. - Bit Candy

"Do you love me or are you just being generous?" This is the question at the centre of Sleeping Lion's sensual new single "Generous," a dark and undulating bit of noir indie pop.

Their second single "Rug" was a surprise SoundCloud hit, and the duo's third is an even more dense and dynamic spin on dark pop. With a woozy, seething bed of synths, there's an underlying edge and solemnity to "Generous" that builds off the sentiment of the hook.

Like Jungle or Glass Animals, Sleeping Lion are embracing this intricate, synth-heavy sound and using it to create moody, intimate tunes. "Generous" is an ethereal and emotionally vulnerable look at relationships that is refreshingly honest, especially given how crowded the genre is nowadays.

Speaking about the track, the band says: "'Generous' [is] in a lot of ways the song that started Sleeping Lion. It was our first real collaboration before we decided to create this new project.

"The song reflected the more cynical feelings we had about love and relationships at the time. It's really about the space created between people when love becomes a generous kind of validation."

"Generous" is a surefire head-turner and a track that cements Sleeping Lion as an electronic group to watch. - Line of Best Fit

Isolated vocals can be a risky move when it comes to opening a song, but I think Sleeping Lion manages to pull it off. Heck, he convinced me to premiere this song...

"Rug" is a downtempo, easy-going future ballad, and I think there are some relatively good comparison acts out there if you're looking to "anchor" yourself to his sound (read: Sounds like section).

One of my favorite moments in the song has to be the transition from highly-produced vocals to something raw and clean somewhere around the 1:30 mark. The contract catches me off guard, and keeps me hanging for its repeat appearance (which unfortunately never appears). Perhaps that's why I keep going back to replay it... - Indie Shuffle

Being that it’s Leap Day, we feel like anything sent our way today is just a bonus music day. New track from emerging synth gods, Sleeping Lion, “Generous,” feeds off of that notion, giving us exactly what we need on a Monday afternoon. Bathed in dark synths, we’re already obsessed. Check out their previous track, “Rug,” if you haven’t already. - The Daily Listening

Boston electropop duo, Sleeping Lion, have premiered new track, “Rug,” this week to some major buzz. Once you take a listen below, you’ll understand why. This is a perfect track to add to any fall playlist – with lush chillwave vibes and sweet vocal stylings. Amazingly enough, the duo wrote and produced their music remotely this past summer, later joining forces in October to record what would become the majority of their upcoming EP. We can’t wait to hear the rest of the finished product! - The Daily Listening

Touching on talented artist from Boston we’re introduced to Alternative-Electronic duo Sleeping Lion, who recently two amazing records that made me a fan instantly. The duo is composed of roommates Nate Flaks and Noah Longworth McGuire who are a musical match made in heaven. The record that grabbed my ear is their recently release track “Rug,” a dope mix of chillwave and electronic that you can easily vibe out to. Give two of their latest tunes a listen below. - Elite Muzik

Sleeping Lion are an alt-electro duo that are out with their latest EP Patient Creature. After members Nate Flaks and Noah Longworth McGuire formed the group in the Spring of 2015, the pair have been crafting away like modern day sculptors do. The first Sleeping Lion songs were written and produced remotely via Skype the following summer while Nate was living in New York and Noah was living in Rome; in the fall, the two came together in Boston to record the majority of their latest EP in Quincy, MA.

I’m in awe of many things, for starters: how an imagery of distance fuses across their sonic tonality, is beyond a subtly they could have premeditated. Rather, it oozes out mellifluously onto silvery synths and lilting harmonies. Patient Creature follows a palate of carefully crafted tones–often complimenting one another–from thumping vintage Roland kick & snare, to expansive and buzzing bright synths, this body of work could only be made better with the fine and pure vocal quality of the duo, this rhapsodic human element Flaks and McGuire lend to their modern electronic sound, amalgamates the power and precision of production with the very real rawness of what can only be felt.

Title track “You Made Me” accounts the risks of love: that one cannot choose to love and avoid the sea of vulnerability that will cast you out–sails drawn. When I hear the quivering falsetto, it all comes together, there is a writer here and you’re going to feel what he has felt.

Live, Sleeping Lion have a simple setup that brings the detail and life found on Patient Creature along with them. “By Now” is another stand out track, with some jazz flourishes featuring some riotous saxophone playing, coupled with an anthemic high, made for an encore moment this band could ride into the night like a flash of lighting. The most mature of the bunch, it almost has one foot in the record and one foot in the future.

“Morning Coffee” may evoke the cold and fog, as the band lean a bit in U.K. trip hop realm, the rhythm section here pushing the song, the heartbreak and good sex to follow, make it one of the most passionate and beautiful songs in the bunch. While closing with “Rug,” by now the arpeggiations and sweeping sounds keep you eager to start the process all over, this number closes out with a string section that’s sure to pull some heart strings. Overall the process of electronic writing, producing, and performing, often falls short of credit where credit is due. After all, they’re doing more, learning more, and presenting more than the plug-in-and-play dynamic. Often one is wearing a producer, engineer, and performer hat, and the amount of holistic growth, and attention to nuance in this intersectionality in modern music is incredibly arduous. Kenna and James Blake are no one trick pony either and Sleeping Lion’s esthetic can be felt from top to bottom. I think it’s why this record feels so personal, I too tire of indie pop without soul, on Patient Creature, I feel the voice of a writer and appreciate the attention to detail all the while and every time I’ve had it on repeat.

For now their upcoming tour dates stay close to home with a few home shows for August, with two events at Berklee’s Red Room that look exciting, but be sure when they tour NY we’ll let you know; if you’d like, keep in touch and follow them on their Facebook page and on Twitter for the latest, and pick up a copy of Patient Creature out on iTunes now / streaming on Spotify. - ELEVTRTRAX