"Whatcha gonna do with a girl like that? Not much."
Sleepers were a band that perhaps most perfectly reflected the migration from pop sensibilities to punk, beyond, and then back. Formed in Palo Alto, CA in 76 or 77, the Sleepers were one of the Bay Area's first punk bands, and then almost immediately, one of the first post-punk bands. The band's only two constants from start to finish were singer Ricky Williams and guitarist Michael Belfer, which accounts for a little of the sonic variety, but not much.
In Simon Reynolds' post-punk pantheon "Rip It Up and Start Again", the Sleepers garner a brief mention, wherein they are described as an American Joy Division. SST's Joe Carducci described the band as possessing "spectral, jaw-dropping beauty". Spectral is really the key word. There's a certain quality about the band--Ricky Williams in particular--that's very difficult to pin down. So much of this collection should be cringe-worthy, as Williams screams his heart out, in ways that would embarrass lesser singers: "I've got these guns and knives and ropes in my room, they are effective--I want to get rid of you" goes one line from the somewhat-deplorable ramalamafest "The Mind". However, Williams has the grace to pull things off in the most near-disastrous fashion, constantly turning belly flops into swan dives. While Joy Division is notable for being one of the few bands to accurately capture the feeling of claustrophobia and despair that flow through depression, the Sleepers' praises should be just as well-sung: while they don't exactly inspire hope, there is a transitory sense given by this body of work (and Williams' other work, notably on the Toiling Midgets' Sea of Unrest), that one is witnessing a beautiful metamorphosis.
The music on this disc falls into three distinct phases of the band's career: the first five tracks are from the initial lineup's Seventh World EP, the next two from the Mirror/Theory 7", and the remainder from the Painless Nights LP (with a few out-takes thrown in for good measure).
It seems like Tuxedomoon was somewhat crucial to this group's development, though it could be the other way around. Michael Belfer joined as their guitarist for a few years, playing on the definitive "No Tears" and "What Use?" singles. Apparently Williams was also a brief member (supposedly only joining for one rehearsal), as evidenced by his presence on the track "Straight Line Forward" on the Pinheads on the Move retrospective. Whatever the case, the crossover went both ways, as saxophone/synth player Steven Brown joined for the Mirror/Theory sessions. It is on these two tracks that the heavy technology enters the picture. Most fundamentally, both tracks feature primitive drum machine rhythms (the beat on "Mirror" sounds like "59 To 1", while "Theory" has the exact same beat as "What Use?"), but there are other similarities: Brown's saxophone is processed beyond the point of recognition, and Belfer's guitar undulates in much the same way as the Tuxedomoon tracks on which he also played (the chorus to "Theory" again uses a similar sound to his techno-shredding on "What Use?"). The leap forward there makes perfect sense: after playing with Tuxedomoon, their resident tech guru Tommy Tadlock built him a treatment kit which it seems Belfer never stopped using (and thank God for that). Even Williams' vocals remind of Tuxedomoon, as on "Mirror", when he moans "what about the other side, always stay the same, the same to meeee!", it sounds a lot like the "grandma don't bite me!" voice at the end of "Pinheads on the Move".
I'm sure a lot more of this would make sense had the participants been better documented--Williams' lyrics in particular--but it's that inscrutability that ultimately aids the overall effect of listening to this. Just like with Joy Division, these can only be taken as terminal statements, primarily because the groups didn't stick around long enough to dilute their catalog. His lyrics contain a lot of recurring themes: misogyny, reputation, rejection, retreat. Comparing the two versions of "Theory" actually helps most in unlocking any sort of meaning in these songs.
Belfer was probably the party most responsible for the intense changes in vision throughout the band's history--although shifting lineups would most likely have a lot to do with that, too. However, it's Belfer's playing that most challenges the accepted roles of his respective instrument. While there may be some similarities to Bernard Sumner's absorption of heavy metal guitar into the punk canon, Belfer manages a panorama of styles--from the overlapping plucked structures of "Zenith", straight-ahead riffing on "The Mind", to creepy atmospherics on "Mirror" and scratchy funk feedback on "Walk Away". While some of it is strikingly processed, there's still a big portion of these tracks that contains artful subtleties not revealed on first listen.
However, what ultimately makes this a fascinating listen is the way that the Sleepers consistently managed to mine the darkness and find things to hope for, confusion begetting transcendence. And again, a lot of that has to do with Williams' way of eliciting meaning from seemingly meaningless nonsequiters, as well as his risk-taking. A song like "She's Fun" (containing the immortal "sometimes it's fun to fuck, that's all she's meant for") manages to make Williams sound like a terrible person, but combined with the rest of these tracks, it just seems to convey one portion of his conflicted worldview. It's this ability to counter blatantly ugly statements (both verbal and musical--not to mention the cover art) with stunning ones that makes this collection truly adventurous.
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