Sleep Whale

URL: http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/13392-cotton-curls/

Sleep Whale hail from the same fertile Denton, Texas, scene that brings us Sunnybrook and Abacus. Members of both of those projects contribute to SW's upcoming album Houseboat, due November 5 on Western Vinyl. The evocative "Cotton Curls", from the forthcoming record, shows the band's way with versatile arrangements and atmosphere. Opening with a thumb piano, the loping rythym is driven by crashing drums, splashy acoustic guitars, and dreamy, far-away vocals. - Pitchfork

URL: http://stereogum.com/archives/mp3/new_sleep_whale__we_were_dripping_093701.html

Sleep Whale, formerly Mom, has been floating around Texas since 2006, but Houseboat is the quartet's official full-length debut. Guitarist/cellist Joel North and multi-instrumentalist (e.g. field recordings, guitar, bass, violin, percussion) Bruce Blay released 2007's Little Brite EP as a duo: The 13 new tracks were fleshed out with the assistance of Paul North and Spencer Stephenson, who join the guys on-stage, though it's still largely the work of Sleep Whale's founders and likely sounds bigger because they've found craftier ways to cram more sounds into their compositions. The collection offers a seamlessly interwoven mix of dreamy electro-acoustic instrumentals and airy pop songs, a combo reminiscent of Greg Davis and Parisian Sebastian Roux's lovely 2005 collaboration Paquet Surprise. Here, the best songs evoke a deep-green forest even before you catch the cut-out trees on the front and inner sleeve. (Speaking of which, the patchwork quilting on the cover's appropriate, too.) Likewise, the gurgling "We Were Dripping" has a real chill to it. - Stereogum

URL: http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=238252

Following up on the early promise of their Little Brite EP, released earlier on in the year, Western Vinyl's Sleep Whale return with a fully-formed long-player. Having previously prompted comparisons to post-rock groups of the more neo-classical persuasion (in the vein of Rachel's, Clogs and labelmates Balmorhea) the band spread their wings a little further on Houseboat, exhibiting a finely tuned, roving ear that's able to latch onto wild, esoteric sounds whilst preserving the levels of accessibility you'd expect from the likes of Efterklang and Sigur Ros. There's much to take in, but perhaps over and above the rich, string-layered instrumentals on offer, the more direct songwriting approach heard on the early tracks is most revelatory. 'Cotton Curls' in particular excels with its glazed-over melodic impressionism, and next up, on 'We Were Dripping' the band start to sound like a hybrid of Akron/Family's rustic wyrdness and Animal Collective's psyched electronics. Very good indeed. - Boomkat

URL: http://gorillavsbear.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

Pretty unbelievable show going down tonight at the Fort Worth Modern, featuring DJ Sober, Denton electro-acoustic duo MOM[Sleep Whale], and the great Kid Koala. We were first turned on to MOM [Sleep Whale] by our friend C.J., and we've been impressed by everything we've heard from them.

Tonight, MOM [Sleep Whale] will be debuting their newest material, "Little Brite." - Gorilla vs. Bear

URL: http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/13500-the-cliffs/

Melting Season is the moniker of Texas' Bruce Blay, a member of Denton's Sleep Whale, whose track "Cotton Curls" we shared with you last month. "The Cliffs" takes up where "Curls" left off-- featuring kalimba and distorted tape loops of found-sound spoken word and various other miscellany, wrapped together with a delicate harp. - Pitchfork

URL: http://www.dallasobserver.com/2008-05-08/music/nine-months-after-bearing-its-debut-electronic-folk-duo-mom-remains-a-force-in-denton/

Mother's Day's coming up this week and—just in case you forgot, you miserable excuse for a child, you—Mom should be at the forefront of your mind.

*
Melanie Gomez
Bruce Blay and Joel North aim for comfort.
Bruce Blay and Joel North aim for comfort.

Details:
Mom performs with Stars of the Lid on Thursday, May 8, at the Granada Theater. And Mother's Day is Sunday, May 11, so don't forget to send your mother a card.
Subject(s):
Mom, Denton, folk electronic

You do know Mom, right? The folkish electronic and instrumental duo from Denton whose debut EP, Little Brite, is still selling well (well, as far as local albums are concerned—the guys only had 1,000 copies of the disc initially pressed) a good nine months after its September 2007 release? You know, the band that seemingly opens for any left-of-center touring act that comes through Dallas and Denton? The one whose music is so stirringly beautiful you almost drop your jaw the first time you hear it? (Get a taste by downloading Mom's song "Skipping Stones.")

Yeah, that Mom. You've gotta hear them. See them too. It's quite the sight: two thin-as-rails college students on a stage filled with equipment, hustling around, playing violin, cello and acoustic guitar, stomping on foot pedals, twiddling with sampler and loop machine knobs, slurping into microphones and creating a sound you'd never really expect to come from such a combination. It's not dance-y, it's not bass-thumping, and it's certainly not hip-hop, although that's the genre in which most of the equipment this band uses generally finds a home. It's symphonic to an extent and head-shakingly mature given the ages of its players and the fact that, though it sounds so painstakingly structured and thoughtfully composed, these two Dentonites aren't University of North Texas jazz students.

In fact, they laugh at that notion.

Joel North and Bruce Blay, both 23, are just musicians, they say with a shrug, and humble musicians at that, quick to point out how intimidated they are by the jazz performance students at UNT, the ones who jokingly razz North and Blay about having never properly been taught to play the stringed instruments they fake expertise at so cunningly while onstage. And yet, when you catch the duo performing—as they are this week at the Granada Theater, opening up for the Austin-based ambient duo Stars of the Lid—you'd never peg them as "the equivalent of, like, high school orchestra players" that Blay says they are.

Maybe it's the hours they spent preparing themselves for playing live shows—quite the hurdle after amassing a mound of found sounds and jam session recordings and spending hour upon hour recording, re-recording, composing, mixing, re-mixing and mastering the six-song masterpiece of Little Brite.

"That's how band practice used to be," the more vocal North explains. "We'd both put on headphones and get, like, a really nice mic, and Bruce would put it through crazy effects in the recording room, and I'd run around the house and tap on things and, like, shake the chandelier. And we would just record that. We got really into collecting found sounds and other weird things. Like, we'd hear a crazy knock and go, 'Oh, that's perfect for this!'"

Like the water sounds on Little Brite opener "Skipping Stones," one of the more National Public Radio segue-sounding tracks on the disc? That's actually ice, Blay, seemingly the more recording-savvy of the two, explains. But bringing that element to the stage was something else entirely. Hence the hip-hop samplers in the duo's arsenal.

"That was such a big thing," Blay says. "We had to play a ton of shows just to see what it was like."

So far, that's worked out in Mom's favor. In developing a relationship with C.J. Davis of Good Records, whom the duo met while spending a couple hundred dollars on CDs a month, the two found themselves a local distributor, a financial backer and a steadfast supporter willing to offer them up to any local booking agent searching for the right band to fit into an opening slot on a touring act's bill.

Now, Mom is gearing up for the Japanese release of Little Brite, and after having recently signed to Austin's Western Vinyl record label, the band is working toward completing its full-length follow-up (which they hope to finish recording by summertime). North and Blay are also in the process of planning out a month-long West Coast tour (for which their goals remain modest: "breaking even" and "not coming back to town with massive credit card debt") that will take them to Seattle and back.

Pretty impressive stuff for a band that sort of started by accident. After practicing with their former act, a math rock quartet called Meroë, roommates North and Blay found themselves at their shared home, still jamming away.

"We would just play without talking and just improv and jam," North says as he rolls a cigarette of loose tobacco, sitting at a patio table outside of Denton coffee shop Jupiter House, "and we had such a good time, and it was so much easier than the other project we were working with."

After parting ways with their Meroë cohort, the elements of Mom just started falling into place. Combining the influences of found-sound experimentalists The Books and of finger-picking acoustic guitarist Owen, Mom's sound began to meld into what it is today, one that merges the speculative distance of the former with the instantaneous affection created by the latter.



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Nine Months After Bearing Its Debut, Electronic Folk Duo Mom Remains a Force in Denton
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Published on May 07, 2008 at 9:33am

"I like to visualize it as a quilt," Blay says, flashing a knowing smile North's way.

*
Melanie Gomez
Bruce Blay and Joel North aim for comfort.
Bruce Blay and Joel North aim for comfort.

Details:
Mom performs with Stars of the Lid on Thursday, May 8, at the Granada Theater. And Mother's Day is Sunday, May 11, so don't forget to send your mother a card.
Subject(s):
Mom, Denton, folk electronic

"My mom's a quilter," North offers with a shrug.

"We [Blay, North and their fellow Denton roommates] all have quilts from Joel's mom," Blay quickly counters. "And it's like, I dunno, the coolest art form ever. It keeps you warm."

"It's different pieces that come together as a whole, which is kind of what making an album is like," North adds. "I would see my mom going through fabric stores, trying to find the perfect little piece to fit in certain squares, and that's the same sort of thing we have with our music."

As in quilting, the duo's songwriting process is an organic one, in which the songs just build themselves up out of the elements they've acquired. And that, at this point, barely includes the vocal element. That's one area Mom expects to develop as it completes its new release, though—so long as it doesn't infringe upon where the band happily stands with its current sound.

"It's joyful and somber," Blay says. "It kind of makes me feel like I'm at home."

"We wanted to make music that would be enjoyable, that wasn't taxing on anybody," North adds. "Like, my 70-year-old father listens to that record. And my mom listens to it while she's quilting. So that's kind of the idea."

And that's kind of the idea behind the band's name as well. There's a story there—one the band prefers not run in print—but given the band's comforting sound of soothing repetition and stirring build-ups, the moniker does make perfect sense.

"Moms are big parts of homes," Blay says, continuing the "home" theme.

True. But they're also responsible for a lot of nagging, guilt and eye-rolling.

"Yeah," North says, with a laugh. "But that's only until you're 19, 20. And then, hopefully, your mom has let go and decided to let you live your own life. This is our appreciation of it."

An appreciation about which these young men's mothers must be quite proud.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone. - Dallas Observer

Perhaps the best thing about Sleep Whale’s debut EP Little Brite is that fact that it is only an EP. I don’t mean that in any backhanded sort of way, but quite the contrary; it works remarkably well as a short, concise collection of songs. The tracks all flow and make sense together, and share a similar enough sound to fit congruently into the twenty-six minute run time.

On Little Brite, this “sound” is primarily acoustic guitar, and it’s wonderfully refreshing to see an artist wrest a unique sound from six strings without running it through some pedal board that inevitably bears more resemblance to an airplane control panel than anything musical. Joel North (responsible for both guitar and cello) takes a decidedly “kitchen sink” approach to his acoustic, throwing in slides, harmonics, and percussive mutes and slaps - sometimes all at once! This is the case in “Josh Likes Me”, which is sure to give any guitar nerds a hot flash or two. The other half of the duo, responsible for violin and all matter of electronic wizardry, Bruce Blay, seemingly plays around (or, rather, right through) North’s guitar, laying down drones, pulses, and processing gracefully and sparingly, helping to maintain the organic atmosphere.

The songs all incorporate all of the aforementioned elements, which proves to be both the record’s greatest asset and most glaring flaw: songs seldom break the formula established from the get-go in “Skipping Stones”. Expect a lovely acoustic melody augmented with cello/violin drones, electronic warping here and there, as well as the occasional outburst of skittering percussion in more or less each of the six songs. Which is a shame, because when the duo branches out, such as the gorgeous cello and violin duet that brings the final two minutes of “Sleep Whale” to a close, the results are brilliant.

That being said, the mild sameness is forgivable when it is doesn’t drag into monotony, which Sleep Whale handily avoid with a smart album structure. No idea stays in place long enough to become irritating, and the relatively short length and quick pace keep the EP engaging. Joel and Bruce have found a wonderfully warm, beautiful, and distinctive sound; a fleshed-out full-length could easily put this duo on the map.

-Calvin Young - The Silent Ballet

URL: http://www.adequacy.net/2009/11/sleep-whale-houseboat/

Using an acoustic guitar, cello, bass, violin, some field recordings and looped digital effects, Sleep Whale have bred and born an absorbing album. Their full-length debut, Houseboat, is a cross pollination of chamber, folk, ambient, and post-rock. Each track grows into an immersive distraction.

These drifting compositions are weaved by a North Texas duo who employ two additional musicians for live shows. Vocals are rare, and when they do come, they’re buried in echo. Otherwise, the sound is a collaboration of the guitar picking out some quiet chords, the string section slowly elevating and depressing the mood, and mixed sound effects filling space. The greatest variant between tracks is the percussion. Beats and rhythms come in nuanced taps, nervy clicks, soothing brushings, dull thuds, and crisp chimes. Cymbals, the consistent exception, often raise the volume in an otherwise hushed collection of lulling ambient music.

The album’s production is interesting because songs often sound like they’re half underwater and half in open air–ambient sounds and partial vocals stir in the murky channels, guitars sound clean and dry, and strings define the water line. And while the opening three tracks are solid, the longer and further out you let it drift, the better Houseboat sounds.

The album’s best begins with track 4, “Roof Sailing”. Here, fading strings move patiently while sounds ripple around you until the three minute mark when a quiet push enlivens the mix. It’s an effective moment. “Summer Sick” follows with light acoustic riffing and a slow marching beat. This track embodies one of the album’s main strengths: a wholly successful collaboration between acoustic instrumentation and ambient noise.

The album holds a number of transportive instrumental exercises and movements, including “Dissolved” and “Icicles”, but my favorite tracks swim through defined, distinct part changes, taking on a storytelling progression. “Still Drumming” and “Make Another Picture”, for example.

On “Still Drumming”, the acoustic guitar quietly chugs out chords, but then the guitar and mood lightens as the rest of the instruments take to the watery resistance. “Make Another Picture” points to heavy traces of freak folk as it navigates with tom drums and compelling sound effects.

Sleep Whale’s songwriting often follows a pattern, and elements can repeat from song to song, but this isn’t predictability so much as the same winds and tides ferrying us to different places. Houseboat, a unique hybrid of genres, is a solid, disarming debut. - Delusions of Adequacy

It didn’t take long to be swept up the bellowing zephyr that is Sleep Whale’s Houseboat and I don’t think I’ve come down yet. Whoever said beauty is fleeting hadn’t stayed alive long enough to hear this record.

Along with Explosions in the Sky, of which they share some post rock similarities, Sleep Whale emerge from Texas, at polar opposite musically from the local hardcore scene. The open space and grand majesty of the Southern American landscape is clearly a fundamental influence on their creative consciousness. Their mesh of collected sounds paired with colourful and melodic instrumentation feels as natural and invigorating as pissing off a cliff. The small, rhythmless passages, such as the mid album vignette ‘Dissolved’, remind me of Animal Collective’s album Feels (2006) - particularly the free, harp-like strumming in the guitars.

They’ve also cranked up their production on this one, compared to their sparse early work, and it’s put it to great benefit employing everything from coffee rich cellos (provided by the talented Bruce Blay), to pan pipes and guitar harmonics, to toy box bells and cricket chirping; all bubbling and fizzing and bursting with life. Lyrics such as “The rain came down in pouring puddles, there’s magic in everything” from ‘We Were Dripping’; though simple, when put to a pretty acoustic guitar and a wash of watery effects, it projects a kaleidoscope of images in your mind.

Being prone to tendencies of hyperbole and melodrama, it may be difficult to believe me when I say that Houseboat is the tenderest, most beautiful and masterful release I’ve heard this year. No exaggeration, it sets a new standard for acoustic recording and it was love at first sight; like the first time I heard the ornamental sampling of Four Tet’s Rounds (2003). The secret ingredient must be liquid sunshine or concentrated joy or something. It’s a stirring celebration of nature and life and is certain to please, unless you don’t like music or trees, in which case you have no soul. Sorry, but the truth hurts. - Bearded Magazine

Somber' is a worthy descriptor of Denton’s Sleep Whale, whose electronic drones and carefully plucked acoustic guitar shapes recall the pensive, wintry airs of Michael Cashmore. - The Onion