VA - Ambient Sleeping Pill Compilation 1 (2014)

This album is divided into two 40-minute, 5-track halves—both a sort of mini voyage. (There is an intentional delay between these halves on the CD.) Both “Warm Night on the Cold Front” and “Dark Moon Lullaby” are epic and blissful (though quite different), slowly fading in and out, ebbing and flowing, with the most dynamic range on the album. (Track 1 is also the loudest song on the album, so if you set your volume during the middle of this track you are safe to lie down across the room :) Both tracks fade out slowly enough to allow you to fully leave your consciousness behind, before giving you a plush entrance into dreamland via “A Strange Economy” and “Gumball.” We then visit the more mysterious scenes of night, with the reverent “Catenary” and “Eluded.” Flying back on the wings of “Drift Chamber” and “Watching a Glowing Horizon Bend with Earth,” we drift in the heavens for what seems an eternity longer, before coming awake again. The dissonant elements at the end of “They Came and Were Gone” sound to me like the confusion of awakening from an unexpected nap, but they are subtle enough to let you sleep through. “It Was January” is designed to wake you up and inspire you. I encourage you to turn this one up, but it was placed lower in the mix just in case you planned to sleep until morning...