Artist: Mathew Sawyer
Title Of Album: Sleep Dreamt A Brother
Year Of Release: 2013
Label: Fire Records
Genre: Folk, Indie
Quality: FLAC
Total Time: 39:03 min
Total Size: 189 MB
01. New Bird To Be (03:12)
02. Feeeeling (04:47)
03. Don’t Tell The Others What We Were Singing (03:33)
04. The Forgetting Head (02:56)
05. October All The Time (04:15)
06. Sleep Dreamt A Brother (03:39)
07. Death Is Like A Dream We’ll Have (03:50)
08. Another World (05:38)
09. The Golden Heart (04:56)
10. How To Work (02:21)
Mathew Sawyer, formerly known as Mathew Sawyer and the Ghosts and simply The Ghosts, already has two albums under his belt; Blue Birds Blood and How Snakes Eat. This should give confidence to those who harbour concerns about the racket that a painter from The Royal College of Art might make upon turning his hand to the good old food of love.
The record is a place. Not the representation of a place, but something inhabitable, announces the press release rather boastfully. When I talk about death or loss, says Sawyer, continuing along the same ambitious line, I want it to be the feeling itself, not just a representation of that feeling. It is the combination of unabashed sincerity and absolute twaddle found in these two statements that best begins to explain the triumphs and irritating shortcomings of Sleep Dreamt a Brother.
The record draws inspiration from Greek mythological siblings Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death). The cover art, designed by Sawyer, naturally, presents a man painted in purposefully childish Genre striking a pose which is mirrored by death, the notion being that life and death are intertwined realities each a dream of the other. The songs are intended as an exploration of the meaning of death. They offer an understanding of the sense of loss it leaves in the living, and ultimately, the idea that death is a dream one shouldn’t fear. The cartoon-like artwork hints that the concept will be accessible, and the unambiguous lyrics of the record’s title track: You wanna die in the night time, because if you die in the night time it’s like you never really died – reveal this to be the case, with Death’s baritone even accompanying, and so mirroring, Sawyer’s gentle eeriness.
For the most part, the innocence and honesty contained within the home-recorded album is endearing. The thing is though, with the exception of two tracks the haunting Feeeeling and the blissful Death Is like a Dream the rest are so very similar. He’s not helped by his style. It’s not quite singing, more a brand of talking in tune. Occasionally, the Quality takes a dip. How to Work, an uncomfortable mess of speech, beat changes and children’s voices, is experimental to the point of self-indulgence. The repetitive arrangements of the majority of the other tracks, along with the sentimental lyrics void of metaphor, mean the record never quite lives up to the potential of the concept. However, Sawyer is certainly genuine in what he says, and his music is considered.
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