Misra
If Chad Van Gaalen took Valium and adopted a Morrissey-like manner of singing he might end up like Markland Starkie and make himself a number of friends in the indie music scene (like Simon Taylor-Davis of the Klaxons and Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear). In putting together his second album as Sleeping States Starkie set some rules to set himself apart from the singer-songwriter crowd like “don’t have strummed guitars” and “only use simple instrumentation.” The resulting album There The Open Spaces is a 12-song collection of lo-fi home recordings featuring droning stream-of-consciousness lyrics augmented by the occasional electronic blip or ambient effect. The progressively multi-layered a cappella “Rain Check” is a fine opener for the album but the music quickly becomes soft-focus and dreamlike with one song blurring into another. Even the shorter pieces like the 55-second “The Times I have Fallen for You” feel longer than their actual running time. It’s not necessarily sleep-inducing but it could be a nice complement to lying on the couch with your eyes closed and the lights turned down low.
