The Big Sleep are the very model of a major indie band circa 2012: a three piece rock band with miles of psychedelia and sound bloops to augment and overtake their songs: loops, phasers, pro-tools, sequencers, everything building together to take you where indie always takes you: to the innermost recesses of solipsism, cracked open like a jar to let some light in. If only the light of sharing a oneness.
I just read a review of the band in New York Press, who compared them to a ride on Space Mountain -yep, the eleven years and counting band, lead you to those kinda comparisons. Lead by Danny Barria, who works the sound with the heel of his shoes, and sings in a manner that belies the distancing. The album they are pushing, "Nature Experiments", is new and he is please with it and he should be: "Valentine", a show stopper near the end of the set, is a giant leap forward for the band. A high quotient melody leads them closer to Jesus And Mary Chain meets Velvets than the Sonic Youth comparisons.
Danny also smiles slyly across the stage and keyboard/also singer Sonya Balchandani, it might be just shared moments during a fine set, but there is a chemistry between the two that leaves the drummer,Gabe Rhodes, lurching behind the stage. After the set the couple are alone near the edge of the floor talking in hushed voices.
At the start of the set, the Big Sleep aren't talking at all, a seven minute instrumental introduces us to them and it is fine, but by the end of the set I am sitting at the back playing Tetris on my cell and talking to a Ballerina from the New York City Ballet, who had just danced in an Edward Sharpe video the other day, and her boyfriend. They wonder if I don't like the band. I like the Big Sleep fine, I just don't think there is much to watch… except for friends sharing secret smiles.
Grade: B+