Sound Colour Vibration (Music | Art | Film | Technology | Science | Culture)

“Most of my songs are about escaping something – escaping this weird vacuum, an unsatisfying world.” – Carmen Villain

Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Carmen Villain is somewhat of an enigma in these times. Once a highly successful model appearing on the covers of many of the worlds leading fashion magazines, she has shifted her talents towards a more pure and raw approach to the arts. Presenting her first musical creation to the public, Carmen Villain has released Sleeper this month on the eclectic imprint Smalltown Supersound. Sleeper is a psych, pop and folk rock masterpiece with beautiful song writing that conveys someone in transition, removing themselves from something that is not purely connected to their soul and the entanglements of life that occur in the process and the stages of regrowth that occur after leaving that world. The album slips between dissonant and consonant melodies with an astonishing vocal approach on every song.

Once submerged in a world of modeling, this deviation to a sound which such sonic intimacy and emotional revelation shows the type of leap in lifestyle she transformed towards in her work. The raw and experimental nature of the guitars, keyboards and the vocal layering really gives the album a hypnotic feeling, creating dynamics that are unpredictable but so tasteful. The bass and drums have a smooth, spacious and powerful presence, allowing the guitars to move in and out of extremes of gentle acoustic folk pieces to blasted out psych burners. With a heavy degree of influenced drawn from Sun City Girls, Carmen has really stunned us at SCV with her debut. Sleeper really pulls me into a mood that takes me to many places within my own lineage and is one of the most incredible debut albums I have heard this year.

Carmen Villain takes on a lot of responsibility to the construction of her debut album, contributing guitars, keyboards, percussion and drum machine. Emil Nikolaisen takes on the other half of the production for Sleeper, playing drums and adding additional keyboards. One of the best qualities is the type of atmosphere and setting that comes alive when listening on headphones. I feel like it is best processed from beginning to end with no breaks between tracks and with all of your focus and attention present. Small additives jump out of nowhere that you can only catch if you are devoting yourself to the listen entirely. An additional vocal layer, backwards processed layers, phantom ghost like trails of layers, rising changes in the depth of the guitar sheets and so much more. Every song has a specific set of tones it is dialed into and the transformation doesn’t stop until the song is done.

There are a handful of songs on the album that really push the bar and make it a must hear record of the year for us. The first moments I heard the transfixing aura of “Obedience”, I went into a very heavy state of mental contemplation. Steeped in more electronics than most of the album with a deep pulsing dark rhythm on the bottom end, the ricochet effects and ghost like vocals are planted superbly inside of this futuristic sounding piece. The percussion is immaculate and the intensity swells measure after measure sounding like 70′s krautrock masters Can in their prime. Carmen laces ”Obedience” with haunting and hardly traceable wavering vocal lines that give the song an ancient mystic feeling when interacting with the mirror like guitar sheets that waver over the mix. Feedback pours into the song once the second climax occurs and the controlled chaos of the sound appears as if it is about to lose its hold. The ending section shows an even more haunting display of vocal layering with washes of guitar sheets to transform the energy yet again.

“Easy”, “Made A Shell” and “It May Well Die” are steeped in darker shades of resonance, separating themselves from the remainder of the album with experimentalism still at the heart. “Lifeissin”, “Dreamo” and “Kingwoman” are the opposite of the last three tracks mentioned, creating a beautifully bright aura in each that transcends the record out of the haze. “How Much” is a song like “Obedience” that has really struck a chord with us. The groove is planted firmly into the ground with rubbery bass, lively drums/percussion and a menacing guitar line. It feels primitive and raw while Carmen adds sultry and mysterious vocal layering that inches itself over the top of the instrumentalism. The guitar experimentation after the first chorus section is phenomenal and is the section that has really burned itself into my memory. There is duality of darkness and the light, especially with the phrasing of Carmen’s vocals. It’s a stunning track that feels like a transformation in character for the album. The end of the album is capped off by the stunning acoustic heavy psych folk track “Demon Lover”. Carmen took a song from Dutch 70′s rock unit Socking Blue for this ending and is a fitting departure to an album with this much color and strong song writing.

Sleeper is a mind blowing album that shows Carmen Villain putting herself directly in line with some of the best in 2013. Revealing very personal emotional experiences and laying it all to examine gives this debut album something all its own. Her voice is pure and so honest that it really matches the adventurous nature of the music. Sleeper is 21st century psych rock at its best.

-Erik Otis

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