evan caminiti: dreamless sleep

On Dreamless Sleep, Evan Caminiti (also known as one half of guitar duo Barn Owl) creates a lush and misty atmosphere with this collection of hazy, half-remembered sound portraits heard through a veil of static and hiss. The dense tracks are an evolution in terms of Caminiti's compositions, musically referencing devotional hymns, Berlin-school epics, and cinematic westerns. The pieces began as guitar and synthesizer recorded to cassette 4-track and were deconstructed and rebuilt over a year after being recorded, resulting in rich orchestral swells and disorienting manipulation of the source material. "The first version of the album - a kind of rough draft - was completed in San Francisco during Spring of 2011 before leaving on an extended tour that found me traveling without a home base for a period of 10 months. Upon returning to San Francisco and settling again in the Winter of 2012 I approached the material in a completely different way, changed by a year of travel and new challenges. It was deconstructed and reformed into a different album than what it had once been, echoing some of the themes I wanted the songs to reflect initially - the way our memory changes events in the past and how our surroundings define us." Sourced entirely from guitar, album opener "Leaving the Island" manipulates the instrument through a series of electronics extending it's octave range and embellishing it with various effects to call to mind sounds of bells and choirs. On "Symmetry" tape hiss washes over blissful synthesizers and fractured fuzz guitar broadcasts in black waves while distant chanting shakes the foundation. In this manner, tape hiss is frequently utilized as a musical element through shaping it into lysergic rhythmic washes and amniotic drones. On "Absteigend", analogue synthesizer hovers around mantric guitars and obscured vocal samples turned into percussive slaps that sound like bursting steam vents. The album is in constant flux between light and dark, from dirge like crawls to uplifting choral harmonies, creating a narrative unlike anything Caminiti has offered before.