Sleepin Pillow – Apples on an Orange Tree

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It’s always a bit, let’s say, tricky when you get few albums of a band to review in such a short period, as the music is a product that requires intense rumination with slow and deliberate weighing. But sometimes, you gotta make an exception and provide the best from your skills in order to present what a band offers from their releases. And especially if these releases stand proud in a band’s running opus.

Well, let’s get out of here and set in our sights a new hitting force coming from Thessaloniki, Greece. The band is called Sleepin Pillow. The album’s name is Apples on an Orange Tree. Are you asking yourself what the hell apples are doing on an orange tree? As the guys tell in an interview it’s hard to be an apple on an orange tree, it’s even more difficult to admit it. In today’s world where everything appears diverse and disguised, musical diversity comes across as refreshing. In that same world everything is structured and predetermined to be in some concise way, but on Apples on an Orange Tree, this sextet manages to do something that is unusually good, but available day-to-day. And that’s where the size of this album lies.

“Lost“ somewhere in between 60′s psychedelic rock and “modern“ music, wrapped up with Greek and traditional Eastern music and with English lyrics, which for an unexperienced listener come across as a coffee bean in a Raffaello Coconut Candy Ball. Or to go full circle, like an apple on an orange tree.

The album is rounded with 13 tracks and exceeds the 70th minute on the time scale. The elements of folklore mixed up with Steven Wilson / Porcupine Tree, Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd hybrid are echoing all the time during Hellenic odyssey. Balanced between underground and commercial, it’s obvious they possess everything necessary to meet the expectations of adherents from various socio-musical schools.

Modern in the opening Instrument of Time, flaring in The Black Sea and Amplifier in My Heart, with emphasized self-esteem in Drop the Mask and The Light is Real, psychedelically-packed Drug, Motherhood, Rize and Once, the band transmits the signals that something big is about to happen on the horizon. Grabbing on with the inspiring Winter Dreams, which sounds as sort of a tribute to Steven Wilson’s solo adventuring, Apples on an Orange Tree as a central piece telling the main story and theme of the record, the untypical A Thousand Times to Spell and the closer, Hail Messiah, confirm that Sleepin Pillow provide more than an attempt to obtain attention.

And this experiment has not failed. On the contrary, although it’s a lengthy record and, because of that, a big piece to swallow, these Greeks set the foundation which is to be upgraded and expanded already on the second release called Superman’s Blues. Stay tuned for more!

Tracklist:

1. Instrument Of Time (4:20)
2. The Black Sea (4:43)
3. Amplifier In My Heart (5:12)
4. Drop The Mask (5:26)
5. Drug (5:03)
6. Motherhood (4:44)
7. Winter Dreams (7:31)
8. The Light Is Real (4:27)
9. Rise (4:30)
10. Apples On An Orange Tree (4:34)
11. Once (9:07)
12. A Thousand Times To Spell (5:55)
13. Hail Messiah (5:05)

Line-up:

* Nomik – voices
* Aisha Sama – bass
* Rispa – guitars
* Antoine – keyboards and guitars
* Nick Jacqueline – wind pipes and percussion
* The Skinman – drums

Links:

http://www.sleepinpillow.com/

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