Underwater Sleep Orchestra – The Night And Other Sunken Dreams (Album – Cryo Chamber)
Genre/Influences: Dark-Ambient, Cinematographic, Experimental.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: This new project is a collaboration between Swedish renowned artist Pär Boström (Cities Last Broadcast, Kammarheit, Bonini Bulga ao) and American artist Bruce Moallem (God Body Disconnect). ‘The album is presented as two different dreams from the same night. One a nightmarish trip within blurry worlds and one a nostalgic journey about things real and unreal’.
Content: If you might expect a symbiosis between both artist’s respective projects, you’re definitely wrong. This music however remains driven by Dark-Ambient elements, but globally speaking it sounds more Electronic and especially into minimalism. There’s a perfect harmony between field recordings and Electronic sound treatments. It’s an easy going dark sonic sensation, which is moving from dreamy passages to darker parts. The very last cut features a few spoken-like, whispering vocals.
+ + + : We all know Cryo Chamber for the collaborative efforts between the artists, but this one sounds different. It sounds like something totally new and with a very own focus. It’s definitely more electronic than most of the Cryo chamber productions, but it remains devoted to the Cinematographic taste of the label. It’s just a more visionary approach achieved with refined and subtle sound treatments and bleeps.
– – – : The work features 16 cuts, which is cool, but a little bit predictable after a while.
Conclusion: I can only encourage both artists to move on with this promising project, which has something apart from the ‘classical’ Cinematographic productions.
Best songs: “Sing It Like Fire”, “A Sullen Slumber”, “Wing Upon Wing”, “Dressed As A Memory”.
Rate: 8.
Artist: www.facebook.com/underwatersleeporchestra
Label: www.cryochamberlabel.com / www.facebook.com/CryoChamber
About Underwater Sleep Orchestra
Underwater Sleep Orchestra is the duo of Swedish musician Pär Boström and American musician Bruce Moallem, formed for the Cryo Chamber label. Boström also runs Kammarheit, Cities Last Broadcast and Bonini Bulga; Moallem records as God Body Disconnect, and discussed that project in the Side-Line interview Click Interview with God Body Disconnect: ‘The Project Can Be Viewed As A Blueprint To My Life’.
“The Night And Other Sunken Dreams” was released on 29 June 2021 as catalogue CRYO 164, on CD and digital. The CD came as a quadfold eight-panel textured digipak with a sixteen-page booklet. The sixteen tracks were written by both members, with VHS audio treatment by Bruce Moallem, booklet photographs by Pär Boström, and mastering and album artwork by Simon Heath.
The duo continued on the same label with “Insomnolence” in 2023 and “Other Sides Of Nowhere” in 2025.
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I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
