7sleepers: Italy

7sleepers got a couple of really nice reviews from a couple of really cool webzines in Italy. 7sleepers also got played on Sanbaradio Trento in Trento and Radio Città del Capo in Bologna. Viva l’Italia!

7SLEEPERS

Seven songs, so relaxing that they induce a sense of drowsiness: the distinguishing characteristic of the first songs (not by chance, seven songs), gathered in an organic composition by an enigmatic musician from Michigan whose name is Robin, is extremely explicit, as if to be an artistic declaration of intentions.

At the core of the songs and the manner in which they are presented, there is also a strong symbolic component linked to the significance of the number; it is used in numerous traditional cultures and somehow feeds the subtly hypnotic content. In any case, we are talking about actual songs that are immersed in softly expanding atmospheres which are embroidered with slow motion tones. 7sleepers has been created primarily as a songwriting project that evolves quickly into an increasingly minimal and shadowy dimension that is focused on majestic vocal lines. These are often just slightly expressed and electronically filtered with fading sound frames that decline into environmental landscapes without completely indulging themselves into mere decompression.

In fact, these are not so much impalpable breaths that support the seven digital pieces of work presented as 7sleepers as they are a careful articulation of acoustic guitar loops and modulations (there is even a decisive strum of guitar, just to keep us awake) that sketch breathtaking sounds which are at once dreamy and ghostly.

More than Eno and Sylvian, who were cited by the same American artist during the presentation of his music, one might think of the lonely narratives of Sylvain Chauveau, which are here rendered with tones that are even more seductive and mysterious in deference to the abstract foundation of a work which is definitely unique, and less “sleepy” compared to other similar experiences, but which nevertheless induce a state of perceptual relaxation in harmony with the slow movement of nature and vital pulsations.

Translated from the Italian at http://musicwontsaveyou.com/2015/07/25/7sleepers/ by Donna Mancusi-Ungaro Hart, Ph.D.

7Sleepers ‘Seven songs about seven that might put you to sleep’

The sad sound of America: we could describe this way Robin Wylie, also known as 7sleepers from Michigan, (and Promised Land was never so distant and aquatic). Seven pieces/songs in slow motion, between muffled metallic clangs (Sleepers) and obscure R.E.M. progressive tones (Garden). This Sufjan Stevens is sad (compared with Seven) and has indeed a voice like an apocalyptic preacher (or like Michael Gira with a vocoder: Utukki).

The perceived relaxation which the title evokes is happily achieved; and accomplished through a professional package that creates well the ethereal atmosphere of the CD (Salome), with its evocative guitars worthy of the best Egle Sommacal (Seven Sleepers, but has Robin ever listened to him?)

Translated from the Italian at http://www.kathodik.it/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=6196 by Donna Mancusi-Ungaro Hart, Ph.D.