Sleepstep: Sonar Poems for My Sleepless Friends

Dasha Rush's third full-length (and first for Raster-Noton) is a concept album about dream states. As with her previous album, 2009's I Run Iron I Run Ironic, Dasha diverges from her already experimental techno style, creating abstract soundscapes woven together with her own detached vocals. The results are appropriately trippy, with flickering electronic tones giving way to lucid poetry. The ominous pianos and enigmatic vocals of "Dance with Edgar Poe" are reminiscent of later Coil or Legendary Pink Dots, while "Sail Away to Her" is an operatic astral lullaby. The album's most rhythmic tracks suggest techno rather than fully embrace it, with the eight-minute "Abandoned Beauties and Beasts" featuring jittery beats similar to other Raster-Noton artists such as Alva Noto. "Antares" is fully immersed in dubby echo, and "Scratching Your Surface (Revisited)" has a slow-mo electro beat sleepwalking through aloof synth melodies and French lyrics. A few of the song titles ("Micro Universe," "Outer Space," "Lucy in the Sky, Lost Diamonds") equate dreaming to floating away in space, and the accompanying tracks are fittingly weightless. The album creatively explores the unpredictability and surrealness of the mind's subconscious activity. ~ Paul Simpson