Author’s Note: All quotes herein are rendered anonymous to protect the identity of the innocent and/or guilty as it may appear…any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental, more or less.
“This band was conceived under a full moon in the lovely town of Santa Cruz, California. With the forest and ocean as our back drop, we were drawn to each other as fellow musicians, friends, and lovers…”
Dear reader, you are hereby advised to tune in, turn on, and drop out to this engagingly eccentric San Francisco by way of Santa Cruz collective comprised of drummer Brian Tice, bassist Jack Allen, guitarists Evan Reiss and Matt Holliman, vocalist/harmonica player Bret Constantino, and Rachael Williams who lists among her credits vocalist, haberdashery, and interpretive dancing. Their debut disc is aptly titled Embrace and will please fans of such ancient rockers as Moby Grape, Saucerful of Secrets Pink Floyd and Can to those retro hipsters who dig the contemporary din of Comets on Fire and Mammatus.
The Sun comes at you in a myriad of ways. The opening cut “New Age” is the stuff of Jefferson Airplane meets Black Sabbath, replete with mushy fuzz bass motifs, plodding drum rumblings, Williams’ eerie, icy, echo-laden vocals, and an acoustic/electric guitar attack most reminiscent of Koukenen/Kantner at their tripped out hippy apex. “After watching all the Hellraiser and all the Jim Henson films in one sitting, Matt wrote the guitar verse. Bret was currently studying in Europe, so the song bloomed into a fifteen minute epic sans vocals, compensated with shredding keys and hot air balloons. Once Brett returned from his overseas voyage, we started working on the track as a full band. It went through countless changes but never sounded complete until after a year of sitting on the back burner…”
However the following track, “Lord,” is something completely different - a sweeping piano ballad that could be mistaken for Cat Power doing her best imitation of Imagine-era John Lennon. Sleepy Sun lives by the credo “let’s get weird.” Herein is their singular explanation: “This is the phrase to use when you and your friends are bored with the ordinary, humdrum folly making. If someone drops this line, wherever they may be, the entire group must participate in an activity created on the spot, regardless of the social norms or rules…
For the record, this Embrace was waxed in Vancouver BC in January 2008 under the direction of Colin Stewart. Though tracked in only eleven days, the Sun did much in the way of preparation. “Much of the time (before) was spent brainstorming about how to compile the songs in a cohesive way that would set a singular tone or message. We aimed to record a cohesive collection of songs, inspired by full length albums, intended to be listened to from start to finish. We didn’t go into the studio claiming outright that we were going to create a ‘psych-rock’ record - that came naturally. There was a conscious decision to change the songs, allowing them to bloom into sonic bulbs, radically different then the way we had been playing them live for the past year.”
“White Dove” and “Snow Goddess” are founded on riffs that beckon heavy metal gods past and present, yet both shift abruptly into mellow verse passages that soothe the soul. According to a recent SS blog, the band draws its roots to the “occult-influenced creative community of Santa Cruz.” Cults in Santa Cruz! Are we talking an episode of NBC Nightline? “Santa Cruz is a community very much submersed into its own culture…although its veneer may convey a sense of murky, burned-out hippy life, there’s a sparkling bubble kingdom if you know where to narrow your vision. Beaches are covered in Monarch butterflies for a few weeks every year, naked dancing to drums in the moonlight, rogue black metal shows under the cover of night and redwood elders, and dank caves that eventually meet the salty ocean water…it becomes very easy to lose your head in the clouds. Sometimes all you want to do is paint your face with charcoal -red and black - cruise the graveyard, scope some blasters, and check out with some durk pins. ‘The Occult is what you make it!”
Sleepy Sun’s Embrace is available now on ATP Records.
--Tom Semioli [June 1, 2009]
Photo: Brett Wilde
