Calico

Producer, DJ and live coder Sleepsang returns to the Interworld label with his EP, Calico – the result of falling back in love with the weirder strains of club music. Entries such as Affectionate and Sentient Dawn rhyme with the artist’s early love of industrial techno, whilst the project was written in a subsequent period of nostalgia. Its five tracks are decorated with sounds that have been re-constructed from live-coded performances, field recordings, disembodied vocal takes and other sound sources.

Sentient Dawn has indecipherable vocal sources tied into a rushing glitchy sequence that stops and starts over a quiet, rhythmic drum – the track’s bedrock, and, at first listen, one of Calico’s most experimental features.

The EP’s title track has a bridging purpose that connects Calico together. It’s a fresh representation of what Sleepsang is capable of with his production, and it captures what live performances from him in a club setting can sound like: musical data in dark and bass-heavy form with jittery rhythms and a slight touch of weirdness that unifies much of the project.

Affectionate is spacious and the kind of creation where its producer wants to draw attention to every sound choice – even its close leaves a distinct mark, but it’s all within the scope of Calico’s themes.

Denial Lot is a rolling, jungle-inflected head-shaker with the persistence of techno and the weight you might find in further UK extensions of bass music, such as the grime and dubstep fusions labels like Bandulu and White Peach are known for. It’s a crouching and ominous ascension that stays at a certain height, giving it an intimidating and stealthy effect. Its short run time amplifies the pay-off of the track and prevents the listener from getting comfortable.

A track of diversified simplicity, Crushed is as calm as it is impactful. It’s reminiscent of fellow Sheffield’s producer Beneath’s dark and minimal UK Funky (but with an execution rooted in weightless 160bpm club music). It’s tightly wound but gradual, and the 3-minute length is just enough for Sleepsang to get his point across, which is that he has the ability to make club music that doesn’t depend on large soundsystems to make an impression.

Enlisting Sam Schorb for the project’s mixing and Declared Sound for its mastering, Calico has the polish such experimental club music deserves – designed to ricochet off a loud soundsystem, it successfully captures the feeling of losing your bearings in a dark venue.

Sleepsang performs and produces using a mixture of improvised live coding and meticulous sound design to bring a fierce sense of unpredictability, while as a DJ, he’s mixed a mash-up of energetic and wide-ranging club music at spaces such as Hope Works, No Bounds Festival, Hatch, and many smaller DIY venues in the UK. His discography is made up of forward-thinking club and experimental ambient music that has received radio play from the likes of Loraine James, DJ Pitch, DJ Python and Ashley Holmes. He’s also provided a guest mix for Ikr. Imprint on NTS radio and curates his own radio show, Hyperobjects, on Kitchen Radio Sheffield.

Written and produced by Sleepsang
Mixing by Sam Schorb
Mastering by Declared Sound
Artwork by Louis Pohl Koseda
Words by Akeem Balogun and Interworld