Easy Sleeper and the hybrid, artful alt rock / post punk fusion of "Timekeeper"

 

"Talkin again i just can't hear / save your guts from my inner ear / bore me all the way home tonight / they call it timekeeper..."

The super potent, tightly wound unwinding artfulness of "Timekeeper" by L.A. based Easy Sleeper by way of the D.C. indie scene, is amazing in how it swings, in how it explodes, in how it wraps around you with it's multi-colored, multi-flavored musical tentacles. Did that mix of metaphors make any sense (?), probably the fuck not, but Easy Sleeper makes perfect sense. Wonderfully produced, the track from the onset has a sort of mix of jangle pop (on steroids) meets 80's MOD / punk (as a new iteration of Americana soul rock fusion) and then starts ramping up, tightening the hold on us. As the music gets heavier, turning corners and surprising at each turn, the song subtly shifts genres as well while always straddling genres too. 

That aforementioned kind of rhythmic swing, something more associated with 80's British ska-rock / 2 tone (as I hear it), twists into an iteration of alt-rock / punk / indie rock. Facets, edges of all of these artful tonal musical shifts. The shouty background vox and this freewheeling blending of styles had me thinking of artists like, or an amalgam of artists like The Jam, The Beat / The English Beat, Bloc Party. I love this kind of hybrid sound and how exquisitely jammy it is. 

LINER NOTES:

LA-based indie rock band Easy Sleeper have announced their latest single, “Timekeeper,” out February 9th- the first single from their forthcoming album out later this fall.

“Pressure, in the form of time, is a never-ending facet of human existence,” says guitarist & vocalist Douglas Guttenberger. “Any other living entity wouldn’t care a whiff; however, the curse of human consciousness ensures it is always hanging around. It’s up there in the nether regions of the mind. It’s there on your wrist. Your bedside table. Your kitchen appliances. It is ever-present. Like the thought of an impending Monday back in the office—even though 5pm on Friday has just arrived. Or after conquering a daunting goal, a brief burst of joy is cut short by thoughts of “what bill is next and when is it due?”

"Carefully crafted thoughts on loan
From nowhere and no one and unknown
Practically hammered and harshly cloned
They call it timekeeper

promises made and bets confirmed
time to lose and pay the term
earn the burn and reaffirm

They call it time waster"

-Robb Donker Curtius 

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM 

https://www.instagram.com/easy_sleeper/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4JlKf796rnWKhzbN1le14u

https://www.tiktok.com/@easysleepermusic

https://www.facebook.com/easysleeperdc

https://linktr.ee/easysleeper

https://easysleeper.bandcamp.com/track/timekeeper


Easy Sleeper formed as a trio in early 2018 after finding each other via mutual friends in the D.C. indie scene. After immediately clicking both personally and musically because of their overlapping politics and love of 90's indie rock, they wrote a bunch of songs together, developing "the Easy Sleeper sound" - something like Real Estate meets Built To Spill meets Velvet Underground - and built a local following on the East Coast, playing countless house & bar shows in D.C., Baltimore, NYC, NJ, & PA.

In 2019 Easy Sleeper made the move to L.A. and built a community by hosting house shows at their home in Koreatown which went from 7pm to 4am on Saturday nights, sometimes boasting a bill of over a dozen local independent artists & bands. They spent the majority of the pandemic recording and are now getting back on the road to play shows across the US.

Easy Sleeper, Los Angeles based, Alt rock, art punk, soul punk, hybrid indie rock, soulful rock, MOD, SKA, "Timekeeper", bred in Washington D.C.,