Sleepdial

Each song on Sleepdial's Leadpiles comes in like a dimmer switch on a slow march toward increasing illumination, but the parade stops just short of "dusk." In the haze are glimmering guitar tones, electronic textures in processed white noise and an overall impressionistic aesthetic that's soothing to the ears and...

By Tom Murphy

July 26, 2012

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Each song on Sleepdial's Leadpiles comes in like a dimmer switch on a slow march toward increasing illumination, but the parade stops just short of "dusk." In the haze are glimmering guitar tones, electronic textures in processed white noise and an overall impressionistic aesthetic that's soothing to the ears and mind. An obvious Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II influence runs through the album, but Luke Thinnes has clearly also taken inspiration from noise and the most abstract end of drone metal. On "carnalswingtimefuckass," the pulsing shimmer and slight rotation of sound amid modulated on-off stutter/sparkle recall Tim Hecker's most recent album, Ravedeath, 1972 — not to the same degree of sonic density, but in its willingness to risk broken noises within an ethereal soundscape. Elsewhere, "trackname..'trackname'" recalls Slowdive at its most summery.

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Tom Murphy is a writer, visual artist and musician from Aurora, Colorado. He was a prolific music writer for Westword and a documenter of the Denver music scene.

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