memotone: i sleep. at waking

Memotone lives in a 400 year-old haunted cottage in the middle of dense woodland, where he has created a stark and vivid trip through a broken fog-clogged urban landscape that carries echoes of the music of such luminaries as Mark Hollis (Talk Talk), Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Cage and Nico Muhly, amongst others. The young William Yates mastered over 11 instruments, in the process creating his own musical language. With his consummate musicianship as a base, William shirked the beckoning of a more traditional conservatory path to bury his instrumentation deep in a bed of broken circuits and loops I Sleep. At Waking is an esoteric path through the night rendered with daylight clarity. From the skittering and snarling "Djakka," to the emotive clarinet fugue of "Docklands" to the sea-sawing Satie-esque piano on "With Time Between Us," it's all suggestive of the perfect soundtrack to the most suggestive and terrifying cinema you're yet to see. Indeed, album track "Stalker" is directly inspired by the Andrei Tarkovsky film of the same name. Ambience, reverb and field recordings play a big part in creating the cavernous or intimate atmospheres on the record, as well. With his previous works earning him plaudits from Radio 1 DJs like Huw Stephens and Gilles Peterson in addition to glowing notices from The Wire and Boomkat (single of the week), it's clear that I Sleep. At Waking is sure to be nudging its way onto 2012's year-end lists.

Memotone - Suburb