Norwegian Ståle Storløkken is a master of all keyboards -vintage organs, monophonic synthesizers, electronic devices and other keyboards enhanced by digital variants and softwares. His debut solo album «The Haze Of Sleeplessness» is a retro-futurist love-poem that celebrates – and updates – the sounds of vintage synthesizers – MiniMoog, Prophet and Arp Pro and Oberheim.
Storløkken already demonstrated his tendency to wander at home in many sonic universes throughout his work with genre-binding outfits as Supersilent, Humcrush duo, Elephant9 trio and his collaborations with Motorpsycho and guitarist Terje Rypdal and trumpeter Arve Henriksen. Now he goes even further, The seven-movements suite «The Haze Of Sleeplessness» employs unapologetically old-school electronica and analogue sounds that brings to mind the late sixties and seventies works of Wendy Carlos, Tangerine Dream and Vangelis.
But Storløkken is far from being nostalgic. He keeps altering and shaping these antique electronic sounds and weaves these seductive sounds with abstract futurist ones and creates a multilayered, symphonic work, This cinematic suite sounds like a dramatic sci-fi thriller that develops from melodic, innocent and ethereal analogue series of squelches, bleeps and blurts to processed and mutant, digital sounds that are more dense, dissonant and even sinister, portraying a state of insomnia that slowly turns into a dystopian nightmare.
When the suites reaches its last three movements – «Turbulence», «Skyrocket Hotel» and «Nitro Valley», the harmless rhythmic grooves of the first movements drown in expansive, dark and noisy soundscapes that are closer to the works of Austrian Fennesz. These last soundscapes capture best the suggestive experience of hazy sleeplessness, offering suggestive insights into the fragile dream state of mind and its deeper emotions and imaginations.
Only 33-minutes long but a powerful and expansive experience.
Eyal Hareuveni
Ståle Storløkken (Minimoog, Prophet T8, Prophet VS, Arp Pro Soloist, Oberheim Xpander, mellotron, Hammond org, Fender Rhodes, Eminent 310 organ, cymbal, Saron, v)
