Traffek I-III was originally recorded in the late summer of '05. The idea behind the original tracks on this release was to create 3 tracks using the same samples and kit parameters for all three tracks. In the late 90's I was using a Roland r8mkII to come up with beats and scratch pad ideas for songs and in time started to like the limitations of the machine you only get so many sounds, and you have basic editing of those sounds, and using the assigned sounds volume control as a makeshift internal mixer, forces you to push the machine in different ways to get variation and character. For Traffek I used an mpc2000xl and took the r8mkII approach 1 kit program to limit the options and the mpc's internal mixer do one take improv recordings and see what came about. I was curious to see/hear the unusual [for me] results of the recording session interpreted by some of the artists that have inspired me greatly since my new beginnings here in LA. The results of the mixes that I got back were overwhelming. It has been a great honor to receive the mixes that I got back from the participating artists on this remix EP. maybe it was all the coil I was listening to at the time opening up some enochian ethernet between us all, or maybe it was all the vodka and whiskey? One can never be too sure. But, these remixes couldn't capture the feelings, moods, and daydreams that filled my head and space over the past year any more accurately. thank you. - Jeff Swearengin of Sleep Clinic Reviews: Sleep Clinic is one of the musical journeys provided to us by Jeff Swearengin of Los Angeles. Jeff is an artist in various mediums of both, the physical and mental. He is a painter, musician with several of his own projects, and collaborator with fellow musicians, so you will only get a small part of his creative environs listening to the Traffek mixes. It is a brilliant and broad part, in itself. The new Traffek release is at times meditative and at others enough to rouse us out of our mundane concerns and work–a–day stupors. The Sleep Clinic "Traffek EP" begins with 'Traffek I, II and III', the first two tracks ease you into the excursion of world that may lie parallel to our own and at times intersect it. 'Traffek III' gives the impression of unknown sidereal vessels with power sources that are best left uninvestigated, should we meet them and we in turn, become their fuel. These liminal ships enter into our own world guided by maligned computer systems with their own agenda and leave with their cache. Track four, 'Rotom Ovres Mix' by Automaton, is the work of a hurried industrial complex, full of worker mechanisms, which serve only the purpose of the hive-mind. We are shown in mental snippets, a wide camera pan in the inner movie of the whole factory with its seemingly infinite amount of workstations and automated workers producing a mysterious product. Then close-ups of individual workers which are a blur of metal, resinous plastics, computer chips, wires, sparks, and blinking lights as they themselves seem to be manufacturing the same. An endless workforce of machines making an endless workforce. Traffek's 'Formula 1 Mix by Cisc' is the sixth track, which leads into a slower pace. It is a future or dimensionally concurrent race of super fueled vehicles on invisible tracks with stars peering through. The audience watches unhindered by seats, but floats in the zero gravity atmosphere. Shimmering lights bounce off the structures which appear opaque and clear. A sensuous night out on another planet, possibly… Traffek 'Memory' mix should enjoy some club, podcast and radio play, so listen and add it to your list, add some of the others, too. 'Revolving Around mix' is reminiscent of a large electronic orb or ashlar in a vast desert setting or inky blackness, delivering jolts of pain, odd pleasures, and power to whomever it chooses. The ' Cracker Black mix' by CuiBono, is a mechanical affair with crushing metallic reverberations, indistinguishable wails from a human-animal-cyborg hybrid, and electricity confined to too small of a space, yet escaping enough to cause some serious damage. The strange wails will probably be one of your favorite sound-bites. The 'Backseat Superhero mix' is mad carnival music or some hyper waltz, which makes you want to know what exactly he or maybe she is doing in the backseat! 'Marching Dynamics mix' by The Operative creates a scene of a multitude of armored soldiers running up gang planks into a large craft with advanced weaponry beyond our own technology. The next song , 'JMMix' introduces us to the humorous sound bite: "I have no intentions of spending the next six months with electrodes wired to my ass." Is this a mission to stop horny aliens or just a crazed fetish neighbor, who knows? Track twelve, The 'Streetlegal Mix' brings to mind a pinch-faced alien adolescent let loose on the world in his new spacecraft as he runs down his fellow aliens and curses them all the while, for being in the way! Splatters of greens, purples, and yellows left in his wake. The final mix, 'Crash', lucky thirteen, places us in a sputtering machine losing it's ability to fly and possibly ending by being locked up in Roswell.
The joy of the Sleep Clinic mixes is that you don't feel you're fighting a
twenty minute battle with the mp3 player of your choice. Some mixes of
other artists last for an amazing amount of time and you need to go
replenish your fluids and nap after they are done. Traffek makes it's
point and knows when it has done so. So possibly, you'll go back a second
time to spot something you may have missed and enjoy doing it. Here you'll
be enticed, not bludgeoned by the music and if you are hit it will be in
the way you crave, not by painful mental extraction or by being worn down. - Dan Tompkins (http://www.myspace.com/polterabend)
Stream (MP3) | Stream (Pop-Up Flash Player) | Download Full Release
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
