The Blue Sleep [TWI 1237 CD] | Blaine L. Reininger

twi1237cd.jpg

Blaine L. Reininger \ The Blue Sleep [TWI 1237 CD]

The Blue Sleep is a brand new studio album by Blaine L. Reininger, the Colorado-born composer and founder member of avant-garde music group Tuxedomoon.

Written and recorded by Blaine in 2017, the album was mixed in his adopted hometown of Athens by noted electronic music producer Coti K. Like most of his previous solo projects, The Blue Sleep combines vocal songs with atmospheric instrumental tracks, three of which (Lost Ballroom, Jacob's Ladder and Odi et Amo) were written for Caligula, a theatre production.

"These days the music plays me," explains Blaine. "The unifying principle behind the songs on Blue Sleep is the method of composition. I apply fine old aleatory techniques - John Cage, William Burroughs, Tristan Tzara - and filter these through my instinctive knowledge of melody and harmony. Lyrics are generated algorithmically (I work with programs which assemble phrases according to mathematical rules) and then edited by me, with phrases suggested by the random output. That's pretty much my modus operandi in the 21st century."

10 track CD. Cover image by George Terzis.

Tracklist

1. Public Transformation
2. The Blue Sleep
3. Lost Ballroom
4. We're Tearing Out
5. Dry Food
6. Camminando Qui
7. Jacob's Ladder
8. The Dull Sea
9. Molecular Landscape
10. Odi et Amo

Available on CD and digital (MP3 and FLAC). Mailorder copies of the CD ordered from Crépuscule are slipcased. To order please select correct shipping option (UK, Europe or Rest of World) and click on Add To Cart button below cover image. Digital copies are supplied by link via email.

Or, you can order with the option of tracked shipping from our friends at Burning Shed (click here to order)

Reviews:

"As a cardinal of the European avant-garde and co-founder of Tuxedomoon, Blaine Reininger is both schooled and shrouded in mystery. Born in a straight-laced part of America, the multi-instrumentalist performer and composer has spent most of his career in the alleyways and shadowy dives of Europe's lowlands. He currently lives in Greece - ground zero for the continent's myths and a portal for all things Oriental. The influence can be seen on his new solo album The Blue Sleep. Strikingly beautiful, it reveals its secrets like a Japanese puzzle box."

"The opening track Public Transformation has the languid beauty and unending reverb of William Orbit's Strange Cargo work. A guitar riff loops while synths bubble and soar; Reininger's trademark violin darting between them at strategic points like a dolphin through Mediterranean waves. He has always had an intuitive feel for electronic music, and starting the album with a dreamy instrumental is a welcome statement of intent. It's on the title track that the gravel and gravitas of Reininger's distinctive voice makes its first appearance. The Blue Sleep is a storming piece of experimental pop: three minutes of club-demolishing intensity with a bass line dripping in sweat, with an echo of Tuxedomoon's Dark Companion in the way it curls around your hips."

"The groove gives way to Lost Ballroom, which leads with exotic rhythms and phrasing. The song chimes with sensations wafted in from across the Bosphorous, but it quickly glows white from the heat of Reininger's guitar. The feeling bears some comparison to the best bits of Peter Gabriel's soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ without the thorns and blood. Things get more playful from there. The San Francisco synthesizer style that TM and the Ralph Records crowd created comes out on Camminando Qui, dissolving into a kind of unjazz. The next tracks move between mythical tales spun on currents of processed sound and digital synthesizers (NI Absynth, is that you?) hanging in the air like curtains of light."

"The album comes to an end with Odi et Amo, an ode to love and hate lapping the shore like fragments of amber in the tide. Reininger's style is far from orthodox, but you can take it as an article of faith that The Blue Sleep will comfort those who suffer from the want of accessible but intelligent music." (The Electricity Club, 02/2018)

"A unique combination of dramatic vocals, freaky anti-ballads, formidable avantpop and sound sculptures" (Westzeit, 03/18)

"The Blue Sleep is a novel musical experience - an album of moods and atmosphere that's not afraid to lead you down some seldom trod musical paths. It's not full of tracks that would have the milkman whistling on his round (if that was a thing that still happened), but that's not really the point. Reininger has added to his already smart canon elegantly" (Louder Than War, 03/2018)