Forever (Sleep ∞ Over album)
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| Forever | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 2011 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 36:22 | |||
| Label | Hippos in Tanks | |||
| Producer | Al Carson | |||
| Sleep ∞ Over chronology | ||||
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Forever is an album by Sleep ∞ Over released on the label Hippos in Tanks in 2011.
Sleep ∞ Over formed in 2009 as a trio of musicians Stefanie Franciotti, Sarah Brown and Christa Palazzolo.[1] They produced and released various singles on the labels Light Lodge and Forest Family before Brown and Palazzolo left the project to form the group Boy Friend.[1] Thus, Franciotti was left on her own to create Sleep ∞ Over's debut studio album.[1]
Composition
Critic Guy Frowny suggests Forever is an "unfolding" of a "dark baby land," "a realm somewhere between heavens “turning by themselves,” populated by flying saucers, and the lifeworld-bound closed doors and tears that can reference either romance or depravity;" the unfolding is done by the vocals of Franciotti, symbolized as a spiritual guide.[2]
Forever is an ambient electropop record that is "downcast, introspective, and melodic," wrote Patrick McDermott of The Boston Phoenix.[3] In comparing Forever to the works of Peaking Lights and Sun Araw, reviewer Zach Kelly categorized it as a shoegaze record with a more "dynamic" and less "aimless" and "soupy" version of the noise-heavy, "highly textured" pop sound that was prevalent on Sleep ∞ Over's previous releases.[4] According to Kelly, two types of tracks are prevalent on the record: slow-tempo new wave dance music and experimental music with moods that range from ambient and majestic to harsh and avant-garde.[4]
Popmatters reviewer Zachary Houle wrote that the album alternates between two types of tracks: slow-paced "melodic keyboard pop" and experimental psychedelic noise pop instrumentals similar to songs on The Moody Blues album On the Threshold of a Dream (1969).[5] Castor Green spotlighted the record's "full" sound, consisting of "meaty basslines, banks of drums and at times, drawn-out crescendos that recall more experimental recent albums by Julia Holter or Roly Porter."[6] Writer Austin Powell labeled Forever in the same league as the works of Pure X and Neon Indian in that it was "redefining Texas slowcore for the chillwave generation."[7] Critic Guy Frowny categorized the tracks into three types of styles: guitar-heavy drone music, ambient industrial music and slow-tempo, lo-fi synthesizer songs; he labeled the album's alternation between and combination of these styles to serve as its hegelian dialectic that attempts to lead to an "unrealized" solution.[2] There are "moments where the synth lines bend and distort, purposefully disfiguring the music’s beauty for a moment both fleeting and fearful."[2]
Frowny suggests that Franciotti sings in a manner where Forever involves a voyeur who listens to her "private" lullabies, and the listeners are "overhearing" these lullabies rather than Franciotti singing to the listeners.[2] Franciotti's vocal performance garnered comparisons to the works of Laurel Halo, My Bloody Valentine and ethereal vocals present in the 1990s works of acts like Love Spirals Downwards from journalists.[5][6][2] Kelly analyzed Franciotti's vocal performance to range from "approachable and human" to "unremarkable, [...] like a slurry Hope Sandoval trapped in a bell jar."[4] Lyrically, Kelly described the songs as "frozen lullabies" consisting of problems that are figured with only an unsuggested tad bit of unsolved detail.[4]
