Alongside acts such as We Lost The Sea and Jakob, Australia’s sleepmakeswaves have long up-held the reputation of Oceania’s post-rock scene with nothing but beaming grins and infectious enthusiasm. Across the band’s discography the Sydney trio have approached and more or less nailed all the expected variations in which the genre can manifest in; from ethereal and ambient to the wild and riffy, sleepmakeswaves have mastered it with all the wit, charisma and excitement that is often absent in this genre many may call stoic. It’s Here, But I Have No Names For It follows in similar suit.
Released today via Dunk! And Bird’s Robe, It’s Here, But I Have No Names For It is essentially what many have come to expect from sleepmakeswaves. However, it’s by far the band’s most confident record thus far. Articulated with the kind of tenacity and assurance that can only come from an artist who has rightfully full courage in their skill, the record stands as eight fully unique tracks that showcase the best of the band’s ability as musicians. There’s nay a second misspent lost or misplaced here – from the giddy excitement of ‘Super Realm Park’ to the gentle ornateness of ‘Black Paradise’ back to the proggy neo-futurism within ‘Terror Future’ every second has been used in order to perfectly present the soundscapes that compose this record. It’s a record as lush as it is varied, and one that remains to be confident and charismatic at all times.
With that in mind, and with the record out now, we got in touch with bassist / keyboardist Alex Wilson to break down It’s Here, But I Have No Names For It, track by track.
Related: sleepmakeswaves – It’s Here, But I Have No Names For It | Album Review
All Hail Skull
“When we were working on this during our pandemic pre-pro era, this was already a contender for the album opener. The M.O. became to make it really big and loud at the start, and even bigger-er and louder-er on the back end. I like to think we did that, managing to pack in some dynamic clean digressions in there too. The final half-time slowdown at the end we did some cool production tricks on, breaking the “rules” of audio production so the whole mix feels like it’s redlining.”
Super Realm Park
“Our nerdy but rockin’ tribute to F-Zero X on the N64. Most of the song is trying to capture an upbeat and futuristic vibe, and the track title is both a tribute to video games and O’Neill Cylinders, which are a kind of theorized floating orbital habitat. Wikipedia it and the pictures will make sense.”
Ritual Control
“This is our fusion of post-rock and grunge, but it’s a shame that Creed and Three Doors Down already fucked-up the “post-grunge” label before we got to it. The first half of this song has heavy Helmet vibes to me, what with the stop-start drop-D riffage, and the back end of it feels like an unwritten Soundgarden riff we astral-projected out of some parallel Badmotorfinger universe. The polyrhythmic trance rave-up in the middle is one of our personal touches to give it that electrospice that we crave.”
Black Paradise
“A cool and heartfelt track to round out Side A after a whole lotta loud. My inspiration when writing this song was ‘The Rip’ by Portishead: melancholy nylon-string arpeggios and a build-up with synth elements. More elements got grafted on. The drumbeat reminds me of our take on Toto’s ‘Rosanna’ shuffle, and the latter half of the song sees us returning to lush (and real) string arrangements after a long sabbatical from orchestral sounds.”
Verdigris
“Drummers get a bad rap but this one was written entirely by our amazing drummer Tim, and there’s nary a tub thumped on it. All I want to say about this one was that I heard the demo and was insistent that nothing was changed, because it arrived as perfection.”
Terror Future
“This track leans most heavily into modern prog sounds. Techy riffs, a complex and shifting arrangement and a heavy-yet-futuristic kind of atmosphere. I like how much room in the arrangement there was to drive things forward with lots of loud, distorted and melodic basswork.”
It’s Here, But I Have No Names For It
“Another take from us on the tried-and-true slow-burning post-rock epic. I think it’s one of the best versions of this sound we’ve done so far, and another demo that, when it came from Otto (guitar), I just thought was perfect off the bat. Orchestration makes its second appearance on this track, creating a beautiful and vulnerable atmosphere to end the song.”
This Close Forever
“This closer starts out sounding a bit like the title track for the first half – earnest guitar arpeggios and yearning emotions. But it gets ripped through by our last dose of math-rock influenced heaviness to be found on the album. I fought for this to be the last song, because the final crashing chords sound like the end of a record to me. Maybe that’s dumb, but no regrets.”