Junk Food for Thought is the review column about whatever it’s about.
It’s often been said that the average person spends a third of their lifetime sleeping. I don’t know how much truth there is to that aphorism, but I know it certainly doesn’t apply to me. At least for my high school years, I’ve spent only about a fifth of my time sleeping, and the other 80 percent wishing I were asleep.
All that to say, when I stumbled upon Robert Wyatt’s 1997 album “Shleep,” its sleepless vignettes and not-quite-dreamy vibe spoke to me on a personal level.
The album is the product of collaboration between Wyatt and numerous other musicians from various genres, including Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera and Wyatt’s wife, Alfreda Benge. But for all the variety between its 11 tracks, “Shleep” coheres thanks to its pervasive sense of insomnia.
I like to view the album as telling the story of one unsleeping night, exploring all the different corners of the world to which the singer’s mind drifts as the hours pass.
The opening track “Heaps of Sheeps” sets the scene with whimsical synths and lyrics about counting sheep gone wrong.
“Each sheep where it landed / Refusing to exit, remained,” Wyatt sings, “Creating a vast writhing heap / Growing quickly on one side.”
From there, the album takes a meandering tour of insomnialand, each song capturing a different aspect of the singer’s restless mind. There’s the rambling aposiopesis of “The Duchess,” the hatchet-unburying angst of “Was a Friend” and the transoceanic longing of “Maryan,” each turbulent thought cascading like a sheep into the heap.
The album then folds inward with “Free Will and Testament,” where philosophical musings on determinism gradually morph into introspective despair. Here, in the midst of the thought-spiral, the weight of exhaustion finally catches up with the singer:
“Had I been free, I could have chosen not to be me / Demented forces push me madly round a treadmill / Let me off please, I am so tired.”
Then, the album takes once more to the air with the avine trilogy of “September the Ninth,” “Alien” and “Out of Season.” At this point, the singer seems to slip in and out of dreams. These are the record’s most delirious tracks, with droning, mournful instrumentation and lyrics full of soaring imagery.
Then comes “A Sunday in Madrid,” with its airy but furtive visit to the “city of the closed doors.” At the song’s end, its protagonist at long last “closes the door of his inner chamber, and sleeps.”
With the advent of sleep comes the album’s best track: “Blues in Bob Minor.” It’s a paranoid homage to Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which manages to one-up the original both musically and lyrically.
Organ, piano, drums and electric guitar all come together beautifully to create a sense of oncoming kinetic dread. The lyrics bleed into each other, tugging the listener along with dense wordplay and allusions.
Here is the epitome of all the simultaneous whimsy and foreboding that characterize “Shleep.” In asleepness Wyatt and his collaborators let loose, creating something of a masterpiece.
Even if you don’t check out the full album, “Blues in Bob Minor” is worth a listen in and of itself. It’s a near-perfect track that works both on its own and as the triumphant destination of the insomnious odyssey that is “Shleep.”
The album concludes with a short instrumental called “The Whole Point of No Return.” After all the chaos of the previous track, it’s a well-earned palate cleanser, easing into the dreamless oblivion of truly peaceful sleep.
Equal parts soothing and off-putting, “Shleep” is the perfect anti-lullaby for the sleep-deprived high schooler.
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Image courtesy of Hannibal Records and Thirsty Ear Recordings
