Sleepthief - Labyrinthine Heart

Artist: Sleepthief

Album: Labyrinthine Heart

Genre: Electronic/Pop
Released: August 31, 2009
Label: Neurodisc
Producers: Justin Elswick, Israel Curtis



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Recommended
Relistenable
Spotify
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Track Listing:

1. "Here I Confess" featuring Joanna Stevens (4:26)
2. "World Gone Crazy" featuring Coury Palermo (3:54)
3. "Skimming Stones" featuring Kirsty Hawkshaw (3:49)
4. "Labyrinthine Heart" featuring Jody Quine (4:07)
5. "A Kind Of Magic" featuring Zoë Johnston (4:02)
6. "A Cut From The Fight" featuring Kristy Thirsk (3:50)
7. "Rainy World" featuring Caroline Lavelle (5:10)
8. "Ariadne (The Dividing Sea)" featuring Joanna Stevens (3:48)
9. "Reason Why" featuring Coury Palermo & Zoë Johnston (4:26)
10. "Fire King" featuring Jody Quine (3:29)
11. "Reversals" featuring Kristy Thirsk (4:00)
12. "There's Something Going On" featuring Roberta Carter Harrison (4:34) 

Woo, that's a lot of featurings. Sleepthief is a recording project by Justin Elswick. The style of the music is strongly electronic (as evident with the background beat in most of the songs). Overlaid on top of this electronic backing are the vocals from the many featured artists from all around the electronica sphere.

I have done my best to link to the artists official websites in the above track listing, but some did not have one available.

So with no further ado, let's break down the tracks.

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Track 1: "Here I Confess" featuring Joanna Stevens (4:26)

The album begins with this very solid mellow track. We open with a piano run followed quickly by some lovely vocal layers. The electronic background kicks in shortly before the lead vocals kick off. Joanna Stevens is one of my favorite vocalists on this album. Her vocals have a nice timbre that is easy on the ears. A nice string arrangement follows throughout the album adding a nice soft touch to the song.

The first half of the song is very mellow with vocal and string layers surrounding you in sound. Towards the middle to last third of the song we have a quickening of the strings as the vocals flourish. The song slowly ends as the vocals peak and then fade.


Track 2:  "World Gone Crazy" featuring Coury Palermo (3:54)

The second track has a much more upbeat tempo to it. "World Gone Crazy" was remixed multiple times and released as an EP in December of 2009. 

This track starts right up with the electronic backing. Coury Palermo's vocals swoop in about 20-30 seconds in. The driving beat of the electronic counterpoint with the smooth vocals that Palermo produces. The chorus section brings cranks up the electronic layers while Palermo's vocals remain steady throughout. We have a short instrumental break about 1:30 in with strong strings taking the forefront.

Palermo reenters and more vocal layers added. We start getting a nice threaded vocal run about 2:40 into the song. Vocal harmonization layers dominate the sound as Palermo's vocals are harmonized with one another. Towards the end of the song we start getting a nice string melody that complements the Palermo harmonization very well. 


Track 3: "Skimming Stones" featuring Kirsty Hawkshaw (3:49)

This is another one of my favorite tracks on the album. This is another relatively mellow song. It starts with a nice vocal flourish by Hawkshaw with a steady string run in the background. Hawkshaw's vocals begin about 0:18 into the song. Hawkshaw's vocals have a deeper tone to them. There's a nice guitar arpeggio running throughout most of the song.

Goosebumps starting at about 2:00 and crescendo at 2:08. We start getting an interesting vocal layering going on. 2:28 the song mellows out again and Hawkshaw comes back in with her sultry vocals. A soft vocal harmony layer continues in the background.

Goosebumps starting at 3:23 again. We have that beautiful vocal layer harmonization from before, except add a nice foreground vocal layer from Hawkshaw. The song gently decrescendos.

 
Track 4: "Labyrinthine Heart" featuring Jody Quine (4:07)

The title track to the album, and probably one of the strongest songs on the album. Jody Quine's vocals are beautiful here. We start with an interesting piano and electronic layer. Quine's vocals enter around 0:27. A soft string arrangement follows her lush vocals throughout the majority of the song. 

Around 1:10 we start getting this nice counterpoint harmony with Quine's vocals still dominating the track.

Goosebumps at around 1:34 as a beautiful vocal harmonization takes over.

At around 2:15 we get a sort of whisper vocalization part with a sharp string melody. Quine enters back in around 2:40. We get that counterpoint harmony again.

Goosebumps at about 3:04 again when we are greeted with that beautiful vocal harmonization again.

The song leaves the vocal track and a soft instrumental leads us out.


Track 5: "A Kind Of Magic" featuring Zoë Johnston (4:02)

This is probably my least favorite track on the album. The song itself isn't bad but for some reasons the vocals and lyrics don't really work for me. The song starts with soft instrumentals that lead into Johnston's vocals. Her vocals are solid but as I said the timbre of her voice doesn't seem to agree with me.

We have the vocal harmonies that prevail throughout the track (which is a common theme on this album).    

Around 2:19 we get a nice vocal variation where the strings swell and the lyrics flow gently through the middle. For much of the remainder of the song we have the same soft instrumental and electronic background with Johnston's vocals remaining throughout.


Track 6: "A Cut From The Fight" featuring Kristy Thirsk (3:50)

This is another one of my favorite tracks either my favorite or second favorite. Kristy's Thirsk's vocals are excellent in this track. We start with a strong electronic beat and the sort of "whisper" vocals. 

Around 0:30 Thirsk's vocals enter set against a nice electronic beat. Thirsk does a lot of upper range work. A gentle driving electronic line goes with the drawn out vocal lines.

If you have a good sound system (or good headphones) that have a nice bass range, the bass line on the song comes through during the entirety of the song.

You won't find a lot of lyrical variety in this song, but it manages the repetition with enough flair to keep the song from sounding strained or boring.


Track 7: "Rainy World" featuring Caroline Lavelle (5:10)

Another solid track featuring Caroline Lavelle. We start with the usual soft electronic beat and Lavelle's vocals come in around 0:30. Her vocal timbre has a nice mellow kind of sultry timbre to it.

Again if you have a system with a nice bass range on it, the bass line on this song comes through very strongly as well.

This song is dominated by the vocals and not a lot of instrumentation (electronic or otherwise) really comes through until around 1:50 when we have a nice instrumental flourish. Lavelle's lyrics pick up again around 2:07.

Another instrumental flourish happens around 3:40. We get a nice sort of melodic cello part that comes through here. Lavelle picks it up again around 4:09 except now there's a much stronger instrumental backing to her vocals. You can feel the tension rising at this point. Continuing until the gradual fade out.


Track 8:  "Ariadne (The Dividing Sea)" featuring Joanna Stevens (3:48)

Another track featuring Joanna Stevens. Much like the first track her vocals dominate the soundscape here with light counterpoint vocals accenting. The harmonic counterpoint continues through a good portion of the song.

Around 2:30 the tension in the song starts building. With the vocal flourishes increasing. Around 2:50 we get a stronger vocal harmony as the tension continues to rise. Stevens keeps up with her main vocal line. Until the song gradually decreases the tension towards the end leading us out nicely.


Track 9:  "Reason Why" featuring Coury Palermo & Zoë Johnston (4:26)

Here we have another track featuring Palermo and we add Johnston to the mix. The song begins with Palermo's vocals and a soft piano backing. There is a ton of vocal layering and combination in this song. Palermo and Johnston hand off the vocal line, and their vocals sound nearly the same in terms of timbre and pitch that it becomes hard to discern when they switch.

This sort of vocal layering is common in many Sleepthief songs, but it becomes difficult to differentiate between Palermo's and Johnston's vocals as they are singing at almost exactly the same pitch and timbre. At 1:35 you hear more directly from Johnston

Throughout the song we have this really beautiful piano line that dominates most of the rhythmic background to the song. Around 3:00 we have the two vocalists enter again and this is where the goosebumps start. 3:30 the song starts to crescendo a little bit as the vocal harmony continues. Finally a gradual decline into the next track.

Track 10: "Fire King" featuring Jody Quine (3:29)

Now I loved Jody Quine in the title track Labyrinthine Heart on this album, but this track in general I did not favor as much. Quine's vocals are solid throughout with the common vocal harmony and strong electronic backing, but the lyrics don't really work for me here.

I like the little vocal echo we get at certain points in the song which add a little to the harmony happening throughout. We hear this very strongly at 2:03 when we get a nice break from the main vocal track. Again the bass line runs strongly throughout this song.

The song continues on this same path until the gradual fade out towards the end setting us up for the next song. 


Track 11:  "Reversals" featuring Kristy Thirsk (4:00)

Another of my favorite tracks on this album. This song is a little more on the melancholic side. We still have the strong bass line and solid electronic backing. However, the vocals and lyrics here makes the song very sorrowful sounding.

Thirsk's vocals dominate this song and the instrumentation stays subdued throughout the track. We have that vocal harmony again that Sleepthief loves using, and it certainly feels like the tension is slowly rising throughout this song.

Around 3:00 we start getting that goosebumps feeling again. With vocal flourishes at 3:27 increasing the tension there as Thrisk really carries the vocals well here. As the song nears conclusion we get that soft fading of the vocals again as everything calms down again easing the tension.


Track 12: "There's Something Going On" featuring Roberta Carter Harrison (4:34)

Okay, so we had Reversals just before this track which was very sorrowful and melancholic sounding. Then we rip into "There's Something Going On" featuring Roberta Carter Harrison. This track immediately pumps the tempo up and drives the bass line hard right from the get go.

We also get that nice string backing as Harrison's vocals enter. It seems that a lot of the Sleepthief featured vocalists have a sort of lower timbre to their singing which isn't a bad thing.

We drive into the chorus line around 1:14 with the electronic beat picking up here and Harrison continuing her solid vocals.1:55 we get a nice back and forth between Harrison's vocals and a sharp instrumentation response.

Around 2:50 we break into a nice instrumental part with the electronic influence shining brightly here. Harrison sort of switches to the background for a minute while the instrumentation takes the foreground. Right after this point we get back to that Harrison foreground vocals with instrumentation response flourishes.

Towards the end we wind down again as the music slowly fades out.

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Right, that was a lot of text and if you are still reading at this point I congratulate you. (: This is what you can come to expect from my music reviews. I like to go as in depth as possible on a per track basis, and give you a little stream of consciousness as I'm writing about those tracks.

Anyway, I definitely recommend this album. It is a bit hard to find it in physical format (on Amazon anyway). It is available on Spotify if you use that service, also on various other Internet music streaming services. You can buy a digital version of the album directly from the Sleepthief website.