Sleepingdog - Polar Life

  by Andrew Carver

published: 10 / 1 / 2009

---

Review

Chantal Acda is a lullaby-voiced singer from the Netherlands by way of Belgium. Under the name of Sleeping Dog she creates music suitable for watching the sun rise near the Arctic Circle – alone. Her music is for the most part concocted of minimalist piano, fingerpicked banjo or guitar, floating over the swell and subsidence of stripped down strings and ambient drones masterminded by Stars of the Lid soundscape artist Adam Wiltzie. Acda also garnishes her music with gently strummed guitar and the tinkle of glockenspiel One of her songs is based on the poem ‘Nu Hverfur Sol I Haf’ by poet and former bishop of Iceland, Sigurbjorn Einarsson, who passed away in August at the age of 97. The song birthed by the poem, ‘The Sun Sinks In the Sea’, casts its cloak over the album, creating a melancholy spell. The album ends with a cover by sadcore unit Sophia, whose ‘If Only’ concludes things with the appropriately depressed note that “If only I could believe that tomorrow/When I wake from my sleep/That you'll still be with me.” ‘Polar Life’, like the work of Nico circa ‘Desertshore’ and ‘The Marble Index’, or the cabin-folk of Bon Iver, speaks of solitude and emotional twilight, and should speak to the hearts of the beautifully glum.

Track Listing:-

1 Prophets
2 Your Eyes
3 Polar Life
4 The Sun Sinks In The Sea
5 Sunshine Daylight
6 When It Lies
7 Alleys
8 Little One
9 Ardennes
10 If Only (Sophia)

Label Links:-

http://www.gizehrecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/gizehrecords
https://twitter.com/gizehrecords