‘Sleepweight’ is a fever dream we are happy to be stuck in. It’s a never-ending stream of closing credits at the end of a dystopian movie. A safe space where one can escape the chaos of a broken reality.
Whichever way you look at it, there’s no doubt that the track is powerfully hazy and weirdly gritty. Oscillating between a fierce grunge core and a more expansive shoegaze outer layer, ‘Sleepweight’ is rather hard to put fully into focus. Perhaps it’s due to its instrumental, monotonous livery, which also adds a great deal of hypnotic and cathartic flair. What we know for certain is that moving at a slow pace and with such fuzzy distortions, the record transforms into an all-encompassing aural black hole, a liquid entity that drowns the listener in an otherworldly universe.
Behind such a decadent livery, we find Philadelphia-based solo outfit Soft Collapse. It’s a bedroom project, meaning it’s been recorded by a guy called Jeremy in his tiny apartment. Well, Jeremy, you did good, this is wonderful. It’s also evidence that limitations can often push deeper artistic research. Soft Collapse moves towards a very small niche, a specific musical direction, and that’s what it’s about; that’s how one can rally an audience. Consider us rallied.
Soft Collapse explains: “‘Sleepweight’ came from that heavy, unreal feeling when you wake up and can’t tell if you’ve actually left the dream yet. That in-between state where time doesn’t make sense and even breathing feels slow”.
Recommended! Discover ‘Sleepweight’ on Spotify:
