Sleep Well

This is the second album by Electric President (Ben Cooper & Alex Kane), made in the same shed in Jacksonville Beach, Florida as their previous records and in Alex's bedroom. The wind blows the sounds away. It's foggy. Beads of dew glisten on the leaves. Outside, in the small tool shed, the light is still on. The ocean is not far away. Concentration and contemplation: for over 13 months, Electric President recorded what Ben Cooper calls a 'middle of the night record;' his 'pop songs about dreams and nightmares.' Dreams and nightmares is what Sleep Well is about -- shadowy and inscrutable atmospheres, the border landscapes of our existence where the fog and the wind passes the sounds over to us. As British as sea-shanties, these songs seem to disappear into echo spirals, when Cooper's voice gradually disappears from the microphone until it nearly sounds ghostly. 'Ether' is an absolute metamorphosis in the tradition of Franz Kafka or Orson Welles -- a typical Ben Cooper pop song that is hymnal but never theatrical. 'Monsters' forms sounds into a melodic, sparkling landscape, while 'Graves and the Infinite Arm' is a dark, melancholy, gothic novel. The wind blows the sounds away. And us with them.