Fresh Sound: Sleepy Sun – “Seaquest”

Sleepy Sun

“Seaquest”

Private Tales

While most psych pop can smother you, Sleepy Sun makes beautiful music that bathes you in its sound within overpowering.  You are floating in the beauty of the guitars and synth while the beat moves you along like a wave.  No wonder their video is filmed on a boat and in a pool.  The Bay Area band is comprised of guitarist Eric Reiss, fellow guitarist Matt Holliman, frontman Bret Constantino, and drummer Brian Tice.  It helps to have a strong supporting cast, of course, including bassists Jack Allen and Owen Kelley, who held the low end down on this LP. The boys were also backed by two incredible singers throughout the album’s two recording sessions: the New Pornographers’ Kathryn Calder and Whitehorn Singers’ Hannah Moriah. Colin Stewart also reprised the producer/engineering role he played on Sleepy Sun’s breakthrough records, Embrace and Fever. This band is just so good and original, I’m trying to think of a band to which to compare.  There are none.  (Well, maybe Julian Cope).  This is a great great band.