Our Sleepless Forest - Our Sleepless Forest

by Andrew Dolton

A little piece of genius stretches the musical lexicon

"Our Sleepless Forest sounds like Spiritualized meets Future Sound Of London’s ‘Lifeforms’ washed across an old school Volkswagen’s windscreen after having been mixed in a big tub of electronic space-rock ethereal windscreen wiper fluid."

Much like William Burroughs or peak time David Bowie there are times when criticism can amount to merely placing a word of choice within a sentence almost at random. This becomes more specific when it comes to certain genres. The fields of space rock and electronica are by mere definition the territory of the chin stroker and with this comes a dictionary, nae lexicon, all of its own. One not well versed with a verse, chorus, verse, chorus, repeat-to-fade style of pop song.

With that in mind; the eponymous debut album from Our Sleepless Forest sounds like Spiritualized meets Future Sound Of London’s ‘Lifeforms’ washed across an old school Volkswagen’s windscreen after having been mixed in a big tub of electronic space-rock ethereal windscreen wiper fluid. Are you any the wiser? Didn’t think so.

The opening track ‘Nomads’ takes a trip (pun intended) from washing over you in a scream of noise for a while and suddenly drops off to a tribal beat and rises again like a mass Hosannah, the space rock version of a key change without the assembled members of Westlife rising from their stools, just about in time. One track in and its already genius.

The second track ‘The Tinderbox’ starts with plucked strings but they sound partly underwater or creeping through a sweat drenched rainforest. It’s like an even wetter version of Deliverance with just as much tension and slightly less Deep South charm. Like a trip to a musical dentist, it drills, it chips away, it gargles and it spits out the mouthwash. Sometimes it becomes a tranquil, rural dentist as there is almost always the sound of the sea and the sound of twittering birds to be heard in the backgroud.

A mere two tracks in and already the gambit of the musical word list has been tested to the limit. The rest of the album is choc full of fun and surprises far too complex to convert into cogent sentences. Just be sure to listen to it as a whole as it is an experience that shouldn’t be taken in parts. An album bursting with ideas and the end result is all the better for it.

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