Physical Melody

Outside of the iconic sounds of Dirty Three, there hasn't been an instrumental band from Australia that's captured the imagination of the music consciousness for quite some time. Over the past few years though, there's been a burgeoning brace of bands that have been challenging this outsider status, discarding their reclusive tags to flirt briefly with the spotlight. Whilst bands such as PVT and Seekae have stretched into the electronic realm, eschewing expectations with every subsequent release, Sydney's sleepmakeswaves has stayed steadfast to their initial mission statement, instead tweaking their aesthetic where they see fit, and over the past year such perseverance has started to pay dividends. Alex Wilson admits that since releasing …And So We Destroyed Everything in 2011, they haven't been able to sit still.

“We released the record July last year, and we did a couple of tours in Australia. But then we did Peats Ridge on New Years, then another headlining tour in February, then over to the States before flying straight back to support Boris, heading to Europe, having a little time off before hitting the tour with Karnivool. It's been relentless for sure; we don't have enough time between these shows to readjust before you are out there again.”

In this day and age instrumental rock may seem to be a dwindling niche from which bands launch into the mainstream. Whilst such levels of recognition have never been an overt focus for the band, Wilson believes that there's a resurgence in instrumental music in Australia that's starting to make its presence felt, and it couldn't come soon enough.

“I believe we have a long way to go as musicians, but I think the reasons why people are starting to gravitate towards us and other bands like us is because of our focus on melody and working hard on our live shows,” he espouses. “A lot of instrumental bands get caught up in focusing on the ambient nature of music and foregoing melody altogether. This then allows us to give everything to a performance, and we can get really physical with it. We give people something to connect with in the absence of vocals. There's an upsurge of instrumental music in Australia with bands like Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving, Dumbsaint have been doing really well also, and I'm really keen to hear Sky Needle's new record. A light is being shone on all these bands that have sat in the dark for five or six years, its bringing that little bit more diversity to the scene.”

The mood inherent in …And So We Destroyed Everything is palpable, a rich tapestry of textures that imparts evocative imagery onto the listener. Wilson admits that although this isn't a deliberate approach, there are times when the process of creating music paints a vivid picture that is impossible to ignore.

“When writing A Gaze Blank And Pitiless As The Sun, I had the basic riffs down, and then I had this image of someone stranded in the desert at night without any water,” he divulges. “It wasn't a particularly narrative-driven, focused thing, but it gave this reference point that highlights where the song might want to go, and gives it some sort of backbone to pull that idea together. A lot of the time the mood we are trying to create comes from a single visual image, a cinematic focus, but then again it can come from feeling an emotion from another piece of music and revelling in that and wondering if I can capture that feeling. It always comes back to these non-verbal reference points, to create something that people can take away from the music.”

sleepmakeswaves will be playing the following shows:

Thursday 13 September - Macquarie Hotel, Port Macquarie NSW
Friday 14 September - Crow Bar, Brisbane QLD
Saturday 15 September - Miami Tavern, Gold Coast QLD
Friday 21 September - Northcote Social Club, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 22 September - Brisbane Hotel, Hobart TAS
Friday 28 September - The Bakery, Perth WA
Saturday 29 September - Fowlers, Adelaide SA
Sunday 30 September - Crown & Anchor, Adelaide SA