Wind/Sleep

Wafting out of their headquarters in Oslo, Wind blow in with Sleep, a two-cut outing that blends traditional psych rock and touches of folk, stretched out with improvisation captured in the studio. It’s a dreamily hazy turbulence that rolls and churns across the ground, keeping their feet free and the collective head in the clouds with a focus that keeps the lengthy cuts from dispersing into formlessness. Wind freely mine a recognizable psych that has solid roots in the 60s, while sounding throughly modern and fuzzy in all the right places. If you gravitate towards kindred spirits like The Ovals, or the recent Barrett Elmore release, then Sleep might be the mystery wind your sails are looking for. Throwing Stones eases in with an almost Hendrix-y circular vibe that gathers more detail and slow-burn heat as it flows out. Guitarist Filip Ramberg handles the vocals, dovetailing in perfectly with Wind’s languid groove…loose, but never lazy or loopy. Coupled with Martin van Houtum and Fredrik Severin’s fluid rhythm section, Throwing Stones moves from misty psych pop into a longer muscular work out that organically unfolds. Cathedral seeps out into a sleepy percolating boil, getting a touch Floydish in parts and working into a frothy bubbling that dissipates gently out, chiming guitars working with rolling drums and bass to blur the finish line. Wind have a firm, but gentle, grip on the waking edge, shifting from one side to the other without feeling unstable or worse yet, uncommitted. Both tracks feel comfortable stretching their legs out and hint at a full length that would take their brief Sleep to full dreamtime.

Throwing Stones :: Wind :: Sleep (2012, Jansen Plateproduksjon)