The Society Islands - The Big Sleep (Self-Released)

This slice of dreamy, oddball pop is courtesy of The Society Islands, the solo project of Cologne, Germany based singer and muti-instrumentalist Boris Rogowski. Across its eleven tracks, The Big Sleep feels looser and more spontaneously whimsical than his other band, DIE SONNE, but it also makes sense to realize it’s the same man, like the first solo work of Brian Eno post-*Roxy Music*. In a way, The Society Islands also sounds a lot like the early quirky strangeness of Eno’s first recordings, but even here, Rogowski seems intent on capturing the less serious side of experimentation.

The Big Sleep is a musical milieu where pop melodies are ephemeral and last in your grasp for a very short time before escaping forever. It’s like watching the processes occurring within a blender from the outsider; indeterminate shapes and shadows whirling inside yet definitely tangible. Beauty abounds in songs like “From My Mouth Into Yours” with its dual harmonies and the slow rocking back-and-forth grooves of “Archer,” and even on harder songs like “Sunday” the relative laid-back and homegrown attitude remains. Countless times, The Big Sleep continuously proves that The Society Island is much more than just a side project but a full-fledged outing in its own right and worth paying attention to.