The slow, heavy and subharmonic backdrifts that wend through 8 Year Sleep play like a narcotic panacea for the endless spools of disenchanted musings that curl through Kayline Martinez clear throat. Better still, they placate just as Mrs. Martinez speaks of uncanny and uncongenial reminiscences, the lacuna dangled between them adding an unnerving punctum to the proceedings.
Equally important, the dissymmetry that holds and remains here for the duration of the brief 3” album ensures that the drifting music doesn’t move too frictionlessly. The ambient textures, though plush like a cloud, are charged with arcs of flanging electricity, invested now and again with blackened waves of rumbling from the low end, and stirred by simple, lurking shadow-cast melodies.
Resistances of ample strength and variety are thus established over the course of the work and better allow the organic forms to stand out and assert themselves. Taken together, the interaction between these elements have both dynamic and static aspects peal through the work. The end result is a tranquility marked by rich shades of unease.
Max Schaefer
