<\/p>\n
A true solo album from St\u00e5le Storl\u00f8kken Just as radio drama is said to provide the best pictures, so some music can make for a perfect film soundtrack without the need for a film to exist at all. \u2019The Haze of Sleeplessness\u2019 is a case in point: as the album starts to play, the listener\u2019s imagination kicks in and does the rest, supplying the necessary plot, character and setting until a full-scale narrative unspools behind one\u2019s eyes. A suite of seven movements whose common musical material is continuously recycled into new shapes and sounds, while recurring leitmotifs create a connecting thread of continuity, \u2019The Haze of Sleeplessness\u2019 operates on several levels simultaneously. Most obviously, perhaps, it\u2019s an unapologetic synth-fest; a love poem to old-school electronica and analogue sound whose squelches, bleeps and blurts can\u2019t help but recall the heroic era of Wendy Carlos, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. \u2018The Haze of Sleeplessness\u2019 is also a true solo album, as keyboardist\/composer St\u00e5le Storl\u00f8kken (famed for his work with Supersilent and a host of other projects, from Terje Rypdal and Arve Henriksen to Motorpsycho) does everything himself, from writing and playing to recording and mixing. \u201cWhen I started on this project I wanted to do everything, including the mixing\u201d, Storl\u00f8kken says. \u201cThis was partly because I like it that way and I wanted to get better at it, but also because I think the mixing stage is such an important part of the artistic result when making a record. And on this record the studio and its facilities are so important that they are like another instrument themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Just as radio drama is said to provide the best pictures, so some music can make for a perfect film soundtrack without the need for a film to exist at all. \u2019The Haze of Sleeplessness\u2019 is a case in point: as the album starts to play, the listener\u2019s imagination kicks in and does the rest, supplying the necessary plot, character and setting until a full-scale narrative unspools behind one\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n
\u2018The Haze of Sleeplessness\u2019 is also a true solo album, as keyboardist\/composer St\u00e5le Storl\u00f8kken (famed for his work with Supersilent and a host of other projects, from Terje Rypdal and Arve Henriksen to Motorpsycho) does everything himself, from writing and playing to recording and mixing. \u201cWhen I started on this project I wanted to do everything, including the mixing\u201d, Storl\u00f8kken says. \u201cThis was partly because I like it that way and I wanted to get better at it, but also because I think the mixing stage is such an important part of the artistic result when making a record. And on this record the studio and its facilities are so important that they are like another instrument themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The instruments that Storl\u00f8kken used for the album, included, he says: \u201cMinimoog, Prophet T8, Prophet VS, Arp Pro Soloist, Oberheim Xpander, as well as some digital\/sortware synths. Most of the material is made up of improvised parts that serve as a base on which the arrangement and the final music is built upon, and this basic foundation can be a melody, some chords, a groove or even just a sonic idea. The title, \u2018The Haze of Sleeplessness\u2019 reflects in a way the state of insomnia: you are awake, but at the same time, not. This state can be in some ways very creative and imaginative, but also very destructive.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s this sense of a liminal state that\u2019s neither one thing nor the other that \u2018The Haze of Sleeplessness\u2019 uses so imaginatively, and perhaps what makes its meaning so difficult to pin down. On one level it\u2019s an intricately conceived electronic journey where the overlaid sounds of several generations\u2019 worth of synthesisers create a malevolent, retro-futurist soundscape complete with clanking industrial noise from what might be \u2018Metropolis\u2019-like dark satanic mills, together with a rattling rhythmic pulse that could accompany an action-packed chase sequence. On the other, it\u2019s an abstract tone poem with numerous weird and often startlingly beautiful elements that defies categorisation or any narrative expectations. The truth may lie somewhere in between, but listening in the dark, or with one\u2019s eyes firmly closed, there\u2019s no problem at all.<\/p>\n
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