Alex Keller - Sleep room

A Closer Listen

Sleep room is an album for anyone who has ever fallen in love with the noise of electronic equipment and appliances.  As someone who misses the sound of dial-up (which made the wait bearable) and enjoys mowing lawns for the sound of the lawnmower, I’m pretty much the target audience.  How large is this target audience?  Let’s add those who are curious about the electronic sounds normally hidden from human experience, yet audible to other species, and fans of feedback, drone and abrasion.

Don’t be misled by the title, which suggests a somnambulant experience.  The title refers to C.I.A. experiments that subjected mentally ill patients to electromagnetic signals.  Keller’s sources “include decommissioned computer server, vintage ECG POTS, modem/network router, non-functioning laptop, UV light insect trap, LED lights, power supplies, urban bus, commuter trains, homemade electromagnetic oscillators, stun gun, homemade Jacob’s ladder, and vintage vacuum cleaner.”  To some ears, the older equipment may prompt a rush of nostalgia, although the specific combination is unprecedented.  While listening, one may either attempt to identify the sounds, or simply enjoy their interaction.

The early notes (should one call them notes?) of “LIDA device” buzz and hum, like a flickering, beckoning light.  Then the thickness dissipates to reveal the sound of internal circuits.  In a quiet patch, only a tendril of hiss is audible.  This is the purest form of industrial music imaginable: not the robots or construction equipment, but the wires and the sparks.  The opening of “CISV” blurs the line between organic and inorganic, proving that white noise can sound like the crashing of waves.  Soon avid pulses and beeps begin to break through, a reminder that communications systems have their own electronic language.  The Alaskan congressman who once infamously referred to the internet as “a series of tubes” wasn’t completely wrong.  Keller is careful to vary volumes and tones, but parts of this piece, if extended, might well be conducive to sleep.

When “McGill” comes to a complete stop, one wonders, “does it really?”  The fascination of Keller’s compositions is the lingering question about decibal range.  One wonders, for example, if younger listeners will be able to hear more of the album than others, or if moths might fly into the speakers if the album is played outside.  Everything here is “real” in some way, although the vacuum cleaner and transportation noises are the most obvious.  Thanks to specially self-constructed gloves, Keller can play selected sounds like a theremin, producing waves and tide pools.  It doesn’t take long to acclimate; by the center of the album, when the title track arrives, one imagines being in the sleep room and finding peace rather than agitation.  A late whistle even sounds like that of a tea kettle.

Sleep room may also be considered an odd offshoot of field recording, which often preserves the sounds of endangered species and biophanies.  The next generation may only know the hums of vintage vacuum cleaners and modems from historical documents.  In a less foreboding fashion, Keller invites listeners to celebrate the sounds of obsolete equipment alongside their current counterparts: a conversation among the inanimate, in which the recording equipment is just another voice.  (Richard Allen)