Sleep and Wake-Up Songs cdep (JAG74)

Sleep and Wake-Up Songs is just a station on your way; it knows it's not your lover. It's a little shed, a lean-to constructed on the banks of some shaded stream between mountains. There is peace and quiet here. The late afternoon sun slants through logs set lazily on top of one another. There's a Les Paul resting against a fallen bough, but there are few loud noises, little reason to panic. The smell of cedars hangs in the air. There's a strange chill.

On Sleep and Wake-Up Songs, Okkervil River and principal songwriter Will Sheff take advantage of a break between albums to present a small collection of five more meditative songs that toss little boomerangs across the distance between what is and what could never be. They try on a loose-fitting felt suit of Tim Hardin-esque folk-pop, wade until soaked into a misty psychedelic duet, strap on an electric guitar for a lark, stack the overlapping refrains of Sheff and Minus Story's Jordan Geiger into a Phil-Spectoresque ecstacy of sexual confusion, and finally strip things down to naked and initiate a straightforward love song. These five songs have a thematic unity and a serious purpose, but the modesty of the EP format allows the band to carry them off with a candid sense of playfulness. This upcoming spring will see a new full-length from Okkervil River; in the meantime, rest awhile in these songs.

(JAG074 released: 11/02/04)