New Music Now 009: Sleepyhead

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Frank Dreyer: Hi there. Thanks for adding us to your day. I’m your chief mischief officer Frank Dreyer for Ink 19. We are so happy you joined us for this edition of the New Music Now podcast with our special musical guest, Sleepyhead. I learned that all three members are schoolteachers. There might be a pop quiz about their album, New Alchemy, after the show.

You can listen to these tracks and playlists from every episode on Ink 19 Magazine’s Spotify page. Now, here’s your host, the Impeccable Julius C. Lacking.

Julius: Welcome to New Music Now from Ink 19 Magazine, where we talk with real artists about the music they’re loving right now. To follow along with the show, find transcripts and playlists at ink19.com. I’m Julius C. Lacking. I am a staff writer for Ink 19 and an on-air programmer at community radio station KAFM in Colorado’s Grand Valley. Please say hello to Sleepyhead. Welcome to the show, Chris, Rachael, and Derek.

Chris: Hi, this is Chris from Sleepyhead. I play the guitar, sing, and write some of the songs.

Rachael: Hi, I’m Rachael McNally and I’m the drummer for Sleepyhead. I also sing, though I’ll admit, it took a very long time to be able to sing and play the drums at the same time.

Derek: Hi, I’m Derek. I play many instruments in the band, including the Wurlitzer, keyboard, electric bass, 12-string guitar. What else? And I sing too.

Julius: Okay.

[00:02:06] Awakening, Sleeping

Julius: Thank you all for being here. We are going to hear tracks from three albums today, including new music from Sleepyhead. So my choice for today is an album called Awakening, Sleeping by a band called Mass of the Fermenting Dregs. Uh, it’s an unusual name, and as you might have guessed by now, this band is from Kobe, Japan, and they have been around since 2002. There were some departing original members and a subsequent hiatus, but they came back in 2015 as a trio led by remaining member, Natsuko Miyamoto on bass since they reunited. Did you guys get a chance to hear this album?

Chris: Yeah, it’s awesome.

Julius: I’m just surprised these guys have been around for 20 years and this is the first I hear.

Chris: I’ve never heard of them either. I worked at a record store in New York called Other Music that there’s actually a documentary about if anyone’s interested, and this is the kind of band that we would’ve sold tons of CDs ‘cause it was, it’s sort of like a little bit under the radar, from another country.

But I stopped working there in 2000, I guess it was 2002. So, I would’ve probably heard of them had I still worked there at the time. They sound great, they got that Stereolab, kraut rock-y thing going on. It’s really great. Yeah.

Rachael: I really enjoyed listening to them too. I kept thinking I was hearing like echoes of Neko Case.

Julius: Wow.

Rachael: And I love her and I love this vocalist. And I think even when you’re in a band and you know how many takes it takes to get the final performance, somehow when you listen to someone else’s band, you just imagine it took one take.

Derek: Yeah, I didn’t hear it. Sorry.

Julius: That’s alright. We are going to hear it now. So this song is called “Dramatic” and it certainly lives up to its title and it brings forth the best qualities of ’90s indie guitar rock with lots of chime and soaring vocals, It’s an electrifying introduction to a very diverse album. Let’s have a listen.

[00:04:19] Dramatic

Julius: Derek, now that you have heard Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, what are you thinking?

Derek: My first thought, I hear Dolores O’Riordan’s voice, you know, so it reminded me of… that put me right in that mind space. So it’s nice to hear sort of that vibe still going on and just to see that that’s coming from somewhere. It’s… I like to see that lineage sometimes.

Julius: Rachael?

Rachael: Well, I really like that song, and again, listening to it, I hadn’t thought of Stereolab until I heard you say it, but that’s definitely true. It’s just that sort of smooth driving, it would be really good driving music, I think.

Julius: It’s like some songs are a groove and some songs are a texture.

Rachael: Yeah.

Chris: I like that she sings in Japanese. I’m always torn ‘cause I like hearing the lyrics to songs, and of course I have no idea what they’re singing about if it’s in Japanese, but as a non-Japanese speaker, it kind of adds to the, like… It’s just a mood, you know? It’s just, I don’t know what it’s about. So it’s, everything is just the music, not the lyrics, but including just the beautiful vocal melodies.

Julius: It’s very expressive.

Chris: Really? Yeah. It’s awesome.

Rachael: Right? I think it’s positive.

Chris: You don’t think, you don’t think it’s a, you don’t think that’s a murder ballad?

Rachael: No, I don’t. Haha. I definitely don’t. Haha.

Chris: Heh heh heh.

Julius: Someone got killed ‘cause they were too dramatic.

Rachael: If, if it is, that would be pretty amazing too, though.

Chris: Would be actually, yeah.

Rachael: Really pretty singing about the murder.

Julius: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah.

[00:06:53] 1960

Julius: Okay. Let’s see. I have another track picked out here. It is called “1960.”, and I have to say that if it’s a time travel track, they uh, showed up about a decade early.

Chris: Mesmerizing.

Julius: All right, so, you know, that is definitely a true to form psychedelic drone worthy of the Osees or King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, if you’re looking for some contemporary references. But, uh, yes, it’s kraut rock, right?

Chris: That little off, backwards beat that starts the main groove is so good.

Julius: Yeah. That fake out where you think you know where the one is?

Chris: Uh, so cool. Yeah.

Derek: For sure

Chris: For me it’s Neu!, the first two, three Neu! records. That, that beat. So cool.

Rachael: Right. I know. And it keeps going and you keep feeling like it’s gonna get to some resolution, but it never does. And it… what is that in music theory, those escalating chords that feel like they’re going up forever?

Julius: Like the circle of fifths?

Rachael: Yeah.

Derek: Shepard tone.

Rachael: So, yeah, the whole song reminds me of that. Also what it made me think about is that it would be the perfect soundtrack to one of my family and friends ski trip videos

Chris: Oh boy. Yeah.

Rachael: Everybody would look so cool. And there’s all those shifts, so you can imagine the wipeout scenes. It would be so good. Everyone would feel like they were a ski star, I think if they saw that video to that song.

Chris: Right. This winter, guys, we’ll send you one of Rachael’s home movies that she makes from our ski trips.

Julius: I look forward to that.

Chris: Yeah, it’s just this sort of very focused thing, but all the musicians are playing these parts that like don’t sync up regularly. So there are these little surprises all the time.

Julius: It’s like weird clockwork.

Chris: The drummer is so good. Which, you cannot make a song like that without a good drummer. That’s… There’s no way.

Julius: Absolutely.

Rachael: But I think nobody should drive to this song, because then I think you’d get a speeding ticket.

Chris: Or you’d be zoned out. You’d be so spaced out. You’d… or maybe your vehicle would just float up into the sky and you’d just like, I mean, that’s what would prob… that’s what would happen to me.

Derek: I listen to that kind of music all the time when I’m driving, ‘n I’m still here.

Chris: Yeah. Okay. I actually sometimes can’t listen to that kind of music when I’m driving, even though it just seems like driving music. If someone else is driving, I can.

Rachael: Right.

Derek: Oh, I can’t wait for the robot cars, man. When they take over and I can sit and listen to music. Oh, it’s the best.

Chris: It’s gonna come with this album programmed already into the sound system, like the U2 thing.

Julius: They’re gonna come with black glass and you know, disco lighting inside.

Chris: Oh yeah. I like it

Rachael: And you can see the little emoji buttons and you push and a song that plays.

Chris: I like it. Just so everyone knows, I did just text Bono, so he knows we mentioned him.

Julius: Oh, good.

Chris: He won’t be bothering us any more today.

Julius: So, uh, what else can we say about this track? I think, It’s one of those tracks where you’re just surprised to find out that it was eight minutes. But yeah, I definitely could go on for twice as long. It’s like, same thing with Fela’s music, you know. I could put that on and zone out and just not even realize that that song went on for 14 minutes.

Chris: Yep, totally.

[00:12:12] Intermission

Frank Dreyer: You’re listening to New Music Now, a podcast from Ink 19. Tell your friends they can find us on all their social nooks and crannies at Ink19Mag or on our website at ink19.com. We’ve been listening to Mass of the Fermenting Dregs and their brand of Japanese kraut rock. Hopefully you didn’t get a speeding ticket if you were jamming in the car.

Now let’s keep listening for Angel Olsen and of course the latest from our guests, Sleepyhead. Remember, you are listening to Ink 19’s podcast, New Music Now.

Julius: All right. Thank you for tuning in. We are back with Sleepyhead. Chris, what new music did the band choose for us?

[00:13:07] Big Time

Chris: We chose the most recent Angel Olsen record, Big Time. Uh, and it was… Rachael and Derek and I do share a lot of taste in music. We like a lot of the same things, but picking like one album was a no brainer ‘cause all three of us just loved this record as soon as we heard it. So it was, it was an easy choice. What was hard was just picking two songs actually, ‘cause it really does not have any bad songs on it.

Rachael: It’s true. It’s so amazing, and I think it’s worth saying that we share a lot of musical taste. That is true, but picture a triple Venn diagram. So there we are in the middle with what we agree on, but very firm differences as well. Other types of music that are very different that we each enjoy alone or just with one of the other band members.

So it was lucky this album came out, because it was so easy. Otherwise there would’ve been more, uh, I don’t know, negotiating, arm wrestling. Thumb wrestling, something.

Derek: Now I’m very interested in this Venn diagram, Rachael.

Chris: We gotta do a big poster in the practice space and we can just add stuff to it.

Rachael: Great. Well, Derek, like you and I, we appreciate some musical theater together from our high school musical theater. We do break out into “Tea for Two” dance routine, he and I. We haven’t done it at a show yet, but once we buy our canes, Derek, that we can decorate, that could happen, Chris.

Julius: They’re essential.

Chris: I will just watch.

Derek: We’re not gonna sound like Angel Olsen anytime soon. Her voice is from like another planet.

Chris: Yeah. It really is.

Derek: Power and strength, and she just sings with like a lot of vulnerability, I think on this whole album. I mean, she is ridiculously open and it’s, I feel like everything that she’s saying is pretty heartfelt.

Rachael: And I do always think she’s like three singers wrapped into one and sometimes it’s like two different versions of her in one song, and it’s just amazing. It really is.

Chris: Yeah. Great lyrics. And the band is so good and they’re subtle. Like it’s not, you know, so like when something happens, like when the horns kick in in the first song, it’s like so good.

Rachael: Yes.

Chris: I hope they had fun making this record, ‘cause her other records are also great. I just feel like this is, this one’s just gone into the stratosphere.

Julius: That sounds amazing. I mean, there is something about those singers, where they are simultaneously vulnerable and completely invulnerable because of it. You know? There’s like absolutely no way you can get to them just because they’ve already put all their cards on the table.

Chris: That’s a really good way to put it.

Julius: Yeah. So let’s see. What is the first track we are going to hear from Angel Olsen today?

Chris: Opening track all the good times.

Julius: Okay, let’s cue that up.

[00:16:09] All the Good Times

Julius: Okay. Chris, what can you tell us about this song?

Chris: Oh, it’s just a great opening track. It’s got this sort of sad vibe, but also becomes this super uplifting, transcendent thing. By the end, the lyrics are just phenomenal. “I can’t say that I’m sorry when I don’t feel so wrong anymore,” just the first thing. It’s just…

Rachael: Uhh.

Chris: You know, it’s like hearing such a great lyric, the very first thing you hear on the whole album, it just pricks up your ears. It’s like, “hello, you should be listening to the lyrics also” on this record. Um, it’s just awesome. I just, even listening to it just now, I hear all these different things, like the bass drum is just so organic. It’s not like this… like, the guy’s a good drummer, like he’s controlling the amplitude of the bass drum a little bit. It’s really subtle. It just, it just sounds so good.

Julius: It feels, you know… it sounds like that, out of that golden era of country, you know, where you had a lyrical hook and you had this band that was just so cool and relaxed and, you know, the whole thing. I mean, so many people try and do that, but it’s so hard to do it and sound sincere about it and, and not like, “Oh, hey, let’s do something that sounds like, you know, country from the era.”

Rachael: Mm-hmm.

Chris: Who knows. I don’t know them. I’m guessing they weren’t thinking that way. They probably weren’t thinking like, let’s write this great song. And it just sort of, that’s what it’s ends up sounding like, you know. And when you’re trying too hard to like, pay homage to something, often there’s something missing. There’s like a level that’s missing and they’re not missing any levels, so.

Rachael: Right. And then you wonder, was it that first lyric or was it some little, guitar melody that started the beginning of this song? But no matter what, it’s the perfect opener, because you do just feel reeled in by it. And I know when we were picking this album, like Chris and I were on the Cape that week and we were thinking about it, and this song, I would say, is impossible to listen to, if you’re standing up at least, and not move around to it. Like to me it is the classic, you grab that wooden spoon in the kitchen and start dancing around.

Chris: That’s Cape Cod for all you Colorado listeners who might not know the… my, my hometown.

Julius: I work with someone in Wellfleet.

Chris: Oh yeah, that’s… a great town.

Rachael: Oh wow.

Julius: Yeah. Yeah. He’s a surfer.

Chris: Yep.

Julius: All right, Derek. Any thoughts?

Derek: Yeah, I, she was kind of hyped up, somehow her album was getting all this media on my Instagram page. I was looking at it and like, Oh, here, what is this somebody else trying to do country again? And so I finally gave it a listen. I was kind of blown away, and I was like, all right. Whatever publicity she has behind her it’s great because she definitely deserves the recognition she’s getting for putting this album out. Um, I don’t know if she identifies as a lesbian country artist, but she just really puts herself out there and all the lyrics are just… it sort of turns a lot of the classic country tropes on its head, I think as it’s coming filtered out through her.

Rachael: And I remember I was looking for videos also back in the summer and I saw some great just fan videos in concerts where it was just her playing guitar. And the songs still are amazing. And that really seems like a true testament to the worthiness of the song, that at its most stripped down it is still entirely…

Julius: The platonic ideal of the song.

Rachael: Yeah.

Chris: All right. The next song we’re gonna hear is “Ghost On” From the same Angel Olsen album, Big Time.

[00:21:20] Ghost On

Chris: Yeah.

Rachael: It’s so good.

Chris: When you do songs in 3/4 time, sometimes the beat just hits you over the head, and that song doesn’t. It’s like just sort of subtle, just sort of smoldering along, building just a little bit. But that mood’s just there the whole time. Even when the drums kick in there at the beginning, it’s just like, just this little bit of a sparkle to it.

Rachael: Not a big shift. I love this song so much. This is, I always feel as a band that we learn a lot when we try to cover a song or when we do cover a song. And some of the songs we cover, it’s for fun for shows, and some of them are just for us to learn how to play and learn something from them.

And that’s how I really feel. If we can pull this song off, I’m not sure which category it will plot into, but I know we will learn a lot from it. And this song, it’s really hard if like when I’m walking our dog down the street, that’s often when I do a lot of singing practice, I don’t know what the neighbors think of it.

Chris: The neighbors think she’s crazy.

Rachael: There’s really never anybody around, so maybe nobody knows except Hugo, our dog. Um, but I would be walking along and be unable to start the song. I could not internalize that little, “now we have,” And I would be thinking, and then I’d like think through to some other part of the song and backtrack to the beginning. like to me, it makes it feel like there’s something really special about it, that it’s ephemeral and you can’t quite always grasp onto it.

Chris: Yeah, we did. Rachael and I did learn how to play this just with the acoustic guitar. But we should do it with Derek too, ‘cause you could get the piano in there. Yeah.

Derek: I’m sort of… I listened to it again today and I was reading along with the lyrics, and I just sort of like this idea that you can read this in maybe a couple different ways and any time a songwriter can do that, it just makes it a little bit more accessible. I mean, there’s definitely some specifics in here, so I’m probably sort of putting the blinders on for some of the lyrics, but I like it when you can connect to this idea that she’s putting out there about starting over.

Rachael: Mm-hmm.

Chris: “I don’t know if you can love someone stronger than you’re used to” is such a great line. Like is it asking some, like, “can you meet me where I need you to be in this relationship?” It’s, but I totally agree with Derek.

Derek: And like, think about, if you read that as like she’s singing that to herself and she didn’t know if she deserves the love, if she’s allowed to move past this past. That’s the way I read it because of just my own experience and that’s how I want to read it, you know?

Chris: Yeah.

Rachael: And that other line, the one later in the song, um, “I won’t fit into the past that you’re used to, I refuse to.”

Chris: Oh yeah. Boy.

Rachael: I don’t know how to quite describe it, but it just, it’s like a double line in this, I don’t know, like it just keeps moving along where the other ones have been like this half, that half, but that one just goes and then onward to the end part. I love it.

Julius: Yeah, no, it’s just outstanding how she builds up so much out of so little, you know, and really leaves it open so that you can… the only thing you can do is listen to the lyrics and pay attention and, you know, focus on that. And yet, you know, the band is there like, providing all the necessary accents and, you know, doing the soundtrack basically. It’s a very cinematic effect.

All right. That was wonderful. Uh, now let’s hear some new music from you guys, from Sleepyhead, the band. Tell us about your new album called New Alchemy.

[00:26:27] New Alchemy

Rachael: We are very happy to have this album out in the world, finally. It took eight years to make, and I think sometimes people think there was a hiatus, but there has never been a hiatus. The days just get very full. So we have been working on this all along and it’s the first album where Derek plays on the whole thing, and it’s very satisfying for it to be done.

So Wild Sometimes, that came out in 2014, had been recorded back when I was pregnant with our first child, so that that one took even longer to make. So we’re going in the right direction and we promise the next release will be much faster than eight years, though I’m not gonna promise a number.

Julius: Ha.

Chris: Yeah, it’s not just the first album with Derek. It’s changed the band a lot, bringing him into it. And now it’s like, it’s so fun being in this band, which for Rachael and myself has been since 1989. I wasn’t even 20 years old when the band started. We learned a lot making this record, and the limitations are kind of gone. We’re not just like a bass drums, fuzzed out guitar, indie rock band anymore. And it’s more fun than it’s ever been.

Rachael: Right.

Chris: Yeah. There’s a funny thing. There’s one song on the record Renovation Blues that I wrote, and I don’t sing on it at all. Rachael sings lead and Derek Sings harmonies. That kind of like sums it up in a way, like whatever works. it just made more sense. Derek’s voice sounded better on that song with her and so there’s no like ego stuff.

Julius: I’m definitely noticing the vocal variety in this album, you know? I mean, not just the different voices, but the different approaches and the different takes.

Chris: Yeah. So many of my favorite bands have multiple singers, like, My Bloody Valentine, Fleetwood Mac, it doesn’t really matter the genre. Um, or like you’re not even quite sure who’s singing on some of those records. That’s stimulating to me, I guess, I like it.

Julius: That’s excellent.

Derek: This is the first song that we went into the studio to do for this album, and, yeah, it’s kind of epic for Sleepyhead, I think. It’s called, “Can You Leave the Light On?”

Julius: All right.

[00:28:41] Can You Leave the Light On?

Julius: All right. I think you guys are familiar with this track.

Derek: Yeah.

Chris: We are, We just played it last night at our show.

Rachael: We did. And this one, you can’t always remember the beginning of a song, but this one has a very distinct origin story. And it was on one of the family ski trips where we probably had five different families in these five little cottages

Julius: Oh, very conspiracy.

Chris: Yeah, exactly. And we go on these trips with a bunch of our friends who all ski, but they’re all just really tolerant of me and Rachael and Derek like disappearing for a while with our guitars and just playing some music. And so I distinctly remember the start of this song sitting in one of those little cabins.

Rachael: You remember that, Derek?

Derek: Yeah, I don’t remember the origin at all. Uh, but I trust you if that’s how it went down.

Chris: Yeah, no, that definitely was that. So when we were like wrapping up the album, we had mixed four songs, but trying to put the album together and kind of realizing that “Can You Leave the Light On” is one of the more important songs, is one of the more intense songs. There was something weird… like I knew it wasn’t quite what I wanted it to sound like. And John was like, I don’t think this is working. And so we ended up realizing that, that really heavy guitar at the beginning that sounds really great — for the guitar nerds out there, it’s a matchless guitar that just sounds amazing — but it’s a little bit intense. And so what I did is a much simpler acoustic part that basically mimicked the electric, and we pulled that electric guitar entirely out of the second verse, and that was clearly like, it finally had this breathing space and this shape to it. And we were like, Yes! For me, it was very satisfying for this song to come together in that way. So.

Julius: Those are great moments. Those are great moments where you, where you don’t know.

Chris: Yeah, you don’t know. Yep. Thankfully, our producer, we have just such a great vibe with him, so yeah, it was super satisfying. It was like, we go…

Rachael: Yeah, and I think if, even 10 years ago taking things out was not as much in our heads as it is now.

Chris: Totally not. It was adding more.

Rachael: A menu of additions.

Chris: Right. Space.

Julius: Yeah. Yeah. It’s definitely a very dynamic song, you know? A lot of things are going on instrumentally.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah.

Julius: Yeah.

Chris: So Derek has his own solo record, and he has a solo version of this song. It’s just such a great song, kind of Stones-y, this little, little Big Star harmonies and kind of classic vibe.

Derek: Yeah, so this song, I think this is probably the second song that I wrote in sort of an outpouring of a lot of writing that occurred sort of after my wife passed away from breast cancer five years ago. And I think to process my grief, I just kept writing these songs and I didn’t really censor any of it. So a lot of it’s sometimes hard to listen to and it’s pretty direct, but I like to think that this one is a little bit more obscure because it feels like it could be a breakup song. And I kind of like that idea that I don’t want it to all be, you know, these grief songs. So my album, Living With a Ghost, I’d like to think that you could listen to that and you could think of it as… if you want like a series of breakup songs, if you wanna listen and read it that way. But sort of that’s the genesis.

[00:33:20] Good Goodbye

Derek: Yeah, I think, you know, during the recording of the whole album of New Alchemy, we all lost somebody very close to us. So we don’t really talk about that a lot in interviews, but I think it definitely informs the entire album if you listen to it. It’s, there’s a lot of personal stuff that we put in there.

Chris: Yeah.

Rachael: That is true.

Chris: Yeah. So Rachael lost her sister to cancer, I lost my father to cancer, and Derek lost his wife to cancer all while we were making this record. But you know what it is? Making this music was like, a thing that could help us, lift us even when… songs, like sad songs, I find up uplifting. That’s why people write sad songs, I think. Not necessarily to make them more sad, it can do the opposite ironically, sometimes. And I do think making this record helped us all. And Derek’s wife, of course, while the loss is most profound for him, she was a dear friend of Rachael’s and mine too.

So she’s in there, she’s in this record. And, when our kids were a little younger and we’d go practice she’d be kind of making sure no one was injuring themselves, while we were practicing. So this record, yeah, we really. She’s there in a big way.

Rachael: Yes, absolutely.

Chris: Ashley.

Derek: We play this song a lot now, and I have enough distance from it where I can sing it as if it’s a breakup song. Uh, you know, I’m a character actor. It’s, more fun to do that way. It’s sort of like a dramatic interpretation, so that’s how I view it.

Julius: Yeah.

Rachael: And it’s just fun.

Chris: I love to play it.

Rachael: No one is thinking any sadness whenever we play this song.

Derek: Yeah. No. it’s like a good rocker barn ride, like what we call a shit kicker back in Florida, you know, there’s Cougar sound in there, a little bit of the Stones thing, and… Uh, I moved from the Netherlands in 1982 to Florida and lived there, basically was raised in Florida, and I have all these sort of southern expressions that I’m realizing now that other people don’t. So when I say like, uh, “lately you’ve been drinking, but that don’t help you out,” like that, I talk like that.

Rachael: I know.

Julius: It reminds me of the Smithereens.

Chris: Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Julius: It has that like very, you know, very kind of straightforward but catchy sound to it.

Derek: Yeah, that’s, that was the thing. Straightforward and catchy. That’s what I wanted, yeah. I mean, they say write what you know. Well, this is what I know. So.

Chris: Yep.

Rachael: Yeah.

Julius: All right. Uh, thank you all for being here today on our New Music Now podcast. Where can we find Sleepyhead’s music?

Chris: It is streaming everywhere you’d expect it to be. And it’s on our Bandcamp page. The easiest place is just to go to sleepyheadrockband.com and you can find links to everything. But you can, you can… It’s out there.

Julius: And Rachael, Derek, where can we find you guys?

Rachael: Well, my only social media presence is through the band, but having said that, I did make my first post ever on the Sleepyhead Instagram, So my contributions to that will be more, um… I’m willing to put anything on there. So I put a time-lapse video of decorating a cake that was a special cake. Yeah. So my things will not always be musical, but that’s where I’ll be. I like real life the best.

Julius: Derek, where can we find you on the internet?

Derek: Right. So aside from the sleepyheadrockband.com, I have my own website, too www.derekvanbeever.com. It’s a great website. My girlfriend made it for me. She’s amazing.

Chris: It looks really nice.

Julius: Great. All right. My name is Julius C. Lacking. You can find me at lacking.org. Thank you for listening.

[00:38:46] END

Chris: Well, that was fun. Very fun.

Julius: Thank you guys.

Derek: All right.

Frank Dreyer: We appreciate you for listening, and thanks to Rachael, Chris, and Derek from Sleepyhead for schooling us on their new music. We heard tracks from Mass of the Fermenting Dregs’ album Awakening, Sleeping songs from Big Time by Angel Olsen and the Sleepyhead tracks “Can You Leave the Light On” and “Good Goodbye” from their new album, New Alchemy.

For more podcasts and reviews of excellent new music, see it all at ink19.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Today’s episode was produced by Frank Dryer, Ian Koss, and Rose Petralia. Our theme music was composed by Avi Bortnick. Check him out online at avibortnick.com. ◼