Maybe it’s all those lazy, hazy, sighing, swaying, lush, beautiful TREES up there in America’s foggy Pacific Northwest finally catching up with him — because Portland, Oregon-based composer Daniel Menche (heretofore best-known for such visceral and cold, acidic showers of noise compositions as 2013’s Vilké, 2015’s Crater, and last year’s Cave Canem) seems to have finally inhaled enough of their thick, tranquilizing gasses to begin mellowing-out BIG TIME.
Late last year, he quietly released the digital iteration of a new, introspective ambient album called Sleeper on his Bandcamp page. Within its three hours(!) of running-time, Menche sought an answer to the question “why the hell do I gravitate to compositions that stresses people out?” and endeavored to re-evaluate his erstwhile compositional and philosophical strategies through the medium of pure sound. Seeking to “amplify the re-imagined traces of light and dark across the inner eyelid of the dreamer caught in that crepuscular moment between wake and sleep,” Sleeper plunged into the more ghostly harmonic dissonance employed by minimalist masters like La Monte Young and Charlemagne Palestine, still as-ever shrouding his “ephemerally half melodic loops and unfurled sonic tapestries” in the kinds of unsettlingly spooky glass coffins he’s known for.
And now, at long, sleepless last: Menche’s ephemeral, Ambien-laced recordings have received a proper tangible HOME courtesy of a luxurious, brand-new triple-CD set on Sige Records. You can order these sleep-aids today, but you’d better shake off that drowsiness and act quickly: these “custom offset tri-fold CD jackets on heavy stock, black metallic ink” — featuring photography by Menche and art/design by Faith Coloccia — are limited to an edition of 500.
And while you wait for Mr. Sandman to arrive, help yourself to a free sample of the eerie bliss you’re liable to feel via the track “Sleeper IX,” which is streaming down below. (WARNING: do not drive or operate heavy machinery.)
Sleeper tracklisting:
01. Sleeper - I
02. Sleeper - II
03. Sleeper - III
04. Sleeper - IV
05. Sleeper - V
06. Sleeper - VI
07. Sleeper - VII
08. Sleeper - VIII
09. Sleeper - IX
10. Sleeper - X
11. Sleeper - XI
12. Sleeper - XII
More about: Daniel Menche
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