Sydney Post-rock kings sleepmakeswaves recently released Love Of Cartography their most epic record to date. Recorded at Studios 301, with Nick DiDia (Karnivool, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Powderfinger, Rage Against The Machine), the album was supported by a Pozible pre-order campaign, through which the band raised over $30,000 from fans.
Love Of Cartography presents the band’s incredible ability to map and develop new creative directions within instrumental post-rock. Guitarist Otto Wicks-Green and bass/ keys player Alex Wilson gave us us a track by track run down of this stunning post-rock release.
Having recently wrapped up a 20-date tour of Europe, sleepmakeswaves are now on the road touring nationally with Sydney prog-rock heavyweights Breaking Orbit. For more info visit www.sleepmakeswaves.com.
Perfect Detonator
Otto: “This was one of the first tracks we recorded with our Nick [DiDia, the album’s producer] when we arrived at 301 Byron Bay. I remember the moment when he took out this rare, old-school analog beast of a pedal called a Mu-Tron and plugged my guitar into it to create the awesome warbled sound in the middle of the song. It was big smiles all round, realizing the prospect of an album’s worth of this kind of creativity and access to amazing gear. The experimentation with tone colours granted by access to so manyeffects and instruments was one of the best parts of going to a big studio and I think that is well represented in this track.”
Traced In Constellations
Alex: “Our writing process can be often long and laborious, but this song came together easily and quickly. Felt very natural – maybe this is because it captures our trademark sound so well. Kid (Jonathan “Kid” Khor, guitar) wrote many of the basic chords and melodies here, and said this song reminds him of early 2000s hardcore bands like Alexisonfire, which was a massive influence on us both when we started sleepmakeswaves. We always get energized from beautiful, elegant minor chords played with punk fury.”
Singularity
Otto: “I remember we had some fun playing around with names for this. At one point we considered matching it thematically with ‘A Little Spark’, but we felt the music didn’t relate well enough, so we decided we’d link it to ‘Emergent’ as seemed like a natural pathway into that song. Another good example of the freedom and creativity that working in a space like 301 could provide. Although you don’t have to listen to this every time you listen to Emergent, and we intentionally separated the tracks for that reason, I think it’s worth the extra time to get immersed in the atmosphere at this point in the record.”
Emergent
Otto: “This song is a beast! Alex wrote the bulk of this and presented it to us in a more-or-less complete state and Tim (Tim Adderley, drums), Kid and I were all like “well, better get practising!” And so we did – over, and over and over.”
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Alex: “Otto is right: ‘Emergent’ is indeed a beast. We did a lot of revision and soul-searching with this track, as it is very long, ornate and intimidating. But in the end we all connected with the uniqueness and ambition of the track. As we recorded all the tracks for this album live in the studio, this one was a bit of a monster to get our heads, arms and fingers around. I think that technical, rhythmic heaviness comes from touring so much with our mates in Karnivool, who’s awesome riffage rubbed off on us in a big way.The title of the song comes from a fascinating scientific and philosophical theory about the evolution of matter, life and thoughtcalled ’emergence’. We connected this with the music because the song travels through many different phases by gradually iterating and evolving through very simple musical fragments, like the disctinctive off-kilter rhythm appears softly at first but builds dramatically through the middle of the track. Creating big things from small.”
Great Northern
Otto: “Working out the guitar parts for this was a bit of trial and error and a lot of fun. I was stoked to indulge my deep love of 80s thrash-style guitar duels and with some back and forthing we ended up with a great result which doesn’t sound too cheesy! I’ve always loved the chime of clean guitar harmonics and I explored this a bit on this album, especially in this track. I think the twinkle of it conveys a starry vibe which seemed appropriate given the starry name. Shout-out to former guitar teacher Damien Robison for showing me the beauty of harmonics back when I was 18.”
The Stars Are Stigmata
Alex: “Easily the heaviest thing on the record, possibly one of the darkest and most aggressive songs we’ve ever written. Again, showing a big influence from our excellent touring partners in Karnivool and 65daysofstatic. On a record that I feel is more positive and upbeat than anything we’ve done before, I like having that grim vibe. It was a really collaborative effort, with everyone adding and refining parts and arrangements that all stemmed from the evil sounding baritone guitar riffs originating with Kid. I’m a big fan of the rhythmic breakdown that happens in the middle of the song – I feel that’s new territory for us and there’s lots of cool stuff in there: drum machines, hand claps, beer bottles and random things found in Nick DiDia’s big box o’ hand percussion. If you ask Tim, the drum parts of this song are partly a homage to the mighty Jesus Christ Pose by Soundgarden, favourite band of he and I.”
A Little Spark
Otto: “Pretty as fuck! Kid had been playing these awesome swelling chords before soundcheck for about a year to test his effects and stuff while touring, so we were quite familiar with them when we started pulling them together into a song. I tried and rejected a lot of things with my guitar part due to not wanting to get too busy, before settling on this single note drone. Alex and I planned out and recorded the flow of it all, in the dressing room at Newcastle Panthers of all places. Somehow we ended up nailing the vibe right then and there, so the finished effort is exactly as first recorded backstage on a tour with Karnivool and Dead Letter Circus.”
How We Built The Ocean
Alex: “The techy buildup in the middle of this song, followed by Otto’s bitchin’ solo, is one of my favourite parts on the whole record. There is some gnarly basswork going on there which I’m very proud of and is really fun to play live. We started writing this back in 2012 and it took the better part of a year to get it feeling right. I feel this a track where the whole is very much greater than the sum of the parts. It all comes together to create a journey between many different sounds and atmospheres.”
Something Like Avalanches
Otto: “We love this track – The fact that it’s so off-kilter and carries such momentum was why we ended up choosing it as the first ‘single’ for the album. There was very little changed after Alex sat back from it and shared it with us in 2012, but we individually honed our parts in great detail over the two years of playing it live and I think the song stands as the most polished and one of the best performed on the album for this reason. Most of this track is recorded with that ES-335 (boy I loved that guitar). Nick’s suggestion of adding some Mellotron over the outro was a brilliant one and it just lifts the climax into the stratosphere. As I first said to Alex when he showed me the track for the first time…’we need to call this something like…. avalanches!’ And so we did.”
Your Time Will Come Again
Alex: “There’s some awesome stuff on this track. Nick got us to re-record some of the glitchy drums on a LinnDrum, which is a cool old drum machine with a very particular, crunchy, sound. And the quiet parts of the song were all tracked live in the same room – me, Otto and Kid huddled around a piano, gently teasing the notes out. A very, special, cool moment. And Otto’s nailed what this song means for us. You can write a song like Something Like Avalanches to capture a moment in time, and you can write a song like this to remind yourself of something. Your Time Will Come Again. It always does.”
Otto: “A lot of my writing contributions to sleepmakeswaves are written firstly on an acoustic guitar in my bedroom. This song is a good example of this trajectory, with the main outro chords (E9, Gmaj7, A9) and melody forming part of a quiet song I wrote for someone a long time ago. Alex took a shine to them and added his electronic magic and an atmospheric intro section, and we worked together on crafting a measured ascent into the ear-smashing finale of the record. It’s a very personal song for me and there’s a vocal line to accompany these chords that I may bring out live if we ever get round to playing it. This song is a big emotional statement, but it’s an optimistic vibe overall and contrasts with the fairly crushing sadness of the closer of the last album. This was a very intentional decision for us and I’m proud of how this track turned out.”
sleepmakeswaves National Tour Dates
Fri Aug 1 – Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Sat Aug 2 – ANU Bar, Canberra ACT
Fri Aug 8 – Amplifier, Perth WA (no Teal)
Sat Aug 9 – Jive, Adelaide SA (no Teal)
Sat Aug 16 – Manning Bar, Sydney NSW
Ticks and info: www.sleepmakeswaves.com
