Review: Lord of Overstock – The Early Sleep

This record is an excerise for me. I have a tendency with music to guess what is going to happen next, because I’m a musician and it pleases my brain. I can’t do that with this album, and it’s a difficult habit to stop.

Cordite Tracker (aka Lord of Overstock) is constantly subverting your expectations. The album opens up to sounds of some unspeakable horror, where everything is dry and dessicated and it’s all gasping for breath. As you steel yourself for a trip down an ugly rabbit hole you quickly find that most of the record is actually deeply introspective, and an unplaceable genre of music that’s mesmerizing.

Some of the songs on this record are the best pieces I’ve heard in months, whereas other ones frustrate me with their more elusive melodies that constantly dance in the shadows. They’re all pushing just past what I want them to be in my narrow mindedness, but it’s better that way. Sometimes music is supposed to challenge you.

Naturally my desire is to get all the beautiful parts without any of the ugly parts but that isn’t how life is, is it? Life is about learning to appreciate the ugly parts. Some tracks start off as frustrating and soon the frustrating bits become the focus that you miss once they’re gone. The way you get used to people’s individual foibles faults and habits you used to find annoying. When that person isn’t there those are the parts that you always remember.

All the instrumentation is recorded using lo fi techniques, which gives everything a sort of lonely vibe that I am definitely into. Underneath there is this swelling noise that’s threatening to overtake you, forcefully asserting its existence. This entire record dances on the edge of everything I want, but what I want doesn’t matter. He reaches that place a few times only to cast off your expectations like some jacket he’s decided he doesn’t like. Everything was over so much faster than I wanted it to be, I needed more of this, but demanding it wouldn’t get anywhere.

This collection of songs affected me the same as when one starts growing accustomed to a person, taking that person for granted, and then missing them once they’re gone. Realizing that you’ve overlooked all the things you cared about, and instead were focused on the things you didn’t. The description reads “Nine tracks of ambient electronics, with an accompanying short story.” I haven’t read the short story, and I don’t know if I want to now that I’ve attached my own. I’m not sure it will be as much of an impact as what the music has already done. This record improves upon repeated listens. Buy the record, support Lord of Overstock. He’s doing very good work.