ARMS AND SLEEPERS - Memory Loops (2020)

The American electronic music duo Max Lewis and Mirza Ramic—aka Arms and Sleepers—will release their new full-length album 'Memory Loops' on July 31st, 2020 via {int}erpret null. The release is the third installment of a six-part music series in 2020, with the full-length 'Safe Area Earth' and the EP 'Eastern Promises' already released so far this year [in addition to the surprise and impromptu album 'Leviathan (In Times Of)' which was written during quarantine and released in March]. The overarching theme of the music series is “self-destruction”, with 'Memory Loops' representing the human psyche element of the conceptual project.

The upcoming album will see the group returning to their ambient and post-classical roots which were previously highlighted on the 2007 'Cinematique' and the 2011 'Nostalgia For The Absolute' releases. At 65 minutes long, 'Memory Loops' is a collection of 14 compositions – slow-paced, moody, and intended for self-reflective and meditative moments. In many ways a therapeutic release, the new album sees the duo exploring their cinematic leanings more purposefully than in their recent creative output. Writes Ramic, “We’ve always been drawn to post-classical and ambient genres and never stopped writing music that resembles our earlier beat-less releases. It took a while to actually complete a new album in this style of music, but it feels like a natural continuation of what we’ve always been and liked doing.”

'Memory Loops' is not music for any occasion – the album evokes a specific mood that is highly introspective and meditative. And the album is intentionally drawn out to allow sufficient space for processing thoughts and emotions. This is also the rationale behind the simple and repetitive song titles, intended to amplify the self-reflective space rather than distract from it. Simply put, the album’s aim is to help us relax and reflect. Artists such as William Basinski, Library Tapes and Deaf Center come to mind when attempting to place ‘Memory Loops’ in a comparable music universe – but the album firmly stands on its own with its jazz and French cinema influences, among others.

'Memory Loops' is a carefully crafted ambient album, written and produced by a duo with a 14-year history of actively writing and releasing music. For the supporters of Arms and Sleepers that have seen the group continually dip in and out of a variety of music genres and styles—a creative tendency that has come to define the duo’s modus operandi—the new album should come as no surprise. For Arms and Sleepers, anything and everything goes when it comes to creative freedom.