Sleepless - Winds Blow Higher - [Raven Music]

2002-08-21

Sleepless, Israeli Duo consisting of Maor Appelbaum and David Bendayan, features an original, mesmerizing musical experience on their debut album, titled “Winds Blow Higher”.
While masterfully issuing lush seemingly-pastoral soundscapes, constructed of a whole variety of different creatively incorporated musical elements, including layers of orchestral movements, Jazz interludes, distorted and clean guitar and eerie bass, all overlaid by Bendayan’s angelic, nearly feminine vocals and Appelbaum’s sinister whisperings, they weave an incredible piece of brooding art.

To my ears, Sleepless is a showcase of contrasts and dialectic. All of the above mentioned well-wielded aesthetical measures symbiotically strive to create in one’s mind the feeling which, in the composer’s point of view, captures, as hiddenly apparent in the singed lyrical, metaphorical riddles, the gloomy essence of our inward and outward universe: a subtle, slippery feeling of imbalance, the tragic consequence of our inmost conflicts, never to be resolved; our longings for warmth, unison, peace of mind and emotional balance in our mentally hectic existence.
But alas! the yearning is never fulfilled. Beneath Bendayan’s heavenly hovering choirs always hides the sinful bassy contrast; Above the pure orchestral movements lurches Applebaum’s sinister voice. Even on the few moments of sheer harmony, the Existentialist tension of Absurdity is always present, awefully leering its next sacrilegious outburst. Indeed, the goal is never reached, the quest is never achieved: the creation of Sleepless is a beautiful, stressfull mourn for the gap between our longings and the harsh reality, for our lost fabulous ability to attain Love; Acceptance; Freedom; Piece of mind; An Hour of careless sleep.

Tom Orgad