Sleep Party People

Sitting in his bedroom in Copenhagen one evening in 2008, arched over a shivering piano in the twilit cool, Brian Batz found himself measuring out sounds in cascading waves. Centuries earlier, beloved avant-garde composer Erik Satie declined the term musician, instead declaring himself a phonometrician - someone who measures sounds. The aching and otherworldly "Third Drawer Down" - the product of Batz's 2 a.m. chording - reflects an ecstatic phonometric approach for his first album under the moniker Sleep Party People. Full of arcane arrangements, broken and secondhand instruments, and manipulated vocals, the self-titled record has redoubled in mystic strength on the verge of its 10-year anniversary reissue. Batz began working on Sleep Party People as an alternative outlet from the band he'd been playing with, the opportunity to opt for obscure decisions and creative idiosyncrasies on his own. Inspired by a range of influences from Satie to the Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine to Boards of Canada, Sleep Party People became a process of constant innovation. Experimentation led to the discovery of a distinct vocal sound, a series of effects layered over Batz's lyrics that feels both hypnagogic in its obscuring power and intimately familiar, like a waking dream. The radiant, concentric "I'm Not Human At All" plays into that duality perfectly, an epic four-chord lullaby