Alt-Ctrl-Sleep - Earth Lens
3/5 stars
Review by William Ruhlmann

In keeping with a group that has the word "Sleep" in its name, Alt-Ctl-Sleep turn in another collection of dreamy music in their second album, Earth Lens. Once again, as on the band's self-titled 2008 debut, the tracks move at slow, deliberate tempos paced by drummer April Diaco, over which her husband, songwriter Joe Diaco, layers shimmering, echoing tracks of keyboards and guitar, and sings through filters in a becalmed voice. In the more active passages, it's like the Jesus and Mary Chain without the chain saw guitar effects; in the calmer ones, like the livelier parts of a Brian Eno ambient LP. There are instrumentals and tracks with only wordless vocals, but when the Diacos' lyrics can be made out, they tend to be reassuring statements like "Come with me, I will take you home" ("Silence") and "Love will keep us together always" ("December"). It's appropriate that Alt-Ctl-Sleep are signed to Lakeshore Records, primarily a soundtrack label (which has given them exposure, notably in the film Henry Poole Is Here), since it's easy to imagine the group making a transition to film score work.

Source

Dave DiMartino in New This Week

Alt-Ctrl-Sleep: Earth Lens (Lakeshore) Didn't know much about this band and just plopped in the CD; was surprised by what I heard. It's the work of North Carolina husband and wife duo named Joe and April Diaco, who have noted elsewhere that their approach to music is "make it simple, melodic and dreamy." To that end, their new album oddly recalls late ‘60s classics like Suddenly One Summer by J.K. & Co. and Puzzle by Mandrake Memorial--less sophisticated, but similarly dreamy. Engineers agree: Must be the way they mic the vocals over the drone! Top it all of with a brilliant band name and we've got a winner!

We're proba​bly just as shock​ed as most of you are about this news. I just got the word on it last night. The ballo​t consi​sts of 100 bands​ in the Best
Alter​native Album​ field. To think about it.. for us to be mentioned out of 100 of some of the bigge​st Indie​ and major​ bands​ inclu​ding Beck,​ Gnarl​s Barkl​ey,​ Nine Inch Nails​,​ Fleet​ Foxes​,​ My Morni​ng Jacke​t,​ Black​ Keys,​ Magne​tic Field​s, Cat Power.​.​.​ is simpl​y mind-​blowi​ng and exciting!​ We are simply lost for words.

Now don't get the ballot confused with an actual Nomination.. A committee has to listen and vote for us to make it to the Nomination. So when grammy time comes and by chance we're not on there, we don't want you to be like "I thought they said they were....". We have to be voted on first, much like a president.

We really want to thank our label Lakeshore Records. They simply are the greatest people, who have a strong passion to get the word out about music they themselves are passionate about. How many bands did you first hear and learn about that got their start from soundtracks or maybe you heard in a film? That's what our label does, they make some of the best soundtracks and work on some great films. They simply have helped us and help people be informed not just with our music, but with a broad spectrum of music.. You have to respect that.

Thank​s to every​one for getti​ng the word out there​.​ We are very grate​ful.​ We can only hope for the best. Anything is possible!

much love,​
Joe&April

Subject: Alt-Ctrl-Sleep plays tribute to Pink Floyd with Fat Old Sun

The recent loss of Richard Wright of Pink Floyd has troubled me. I learned a lot from his piano style. Richard always played simple piano parts that just sounded beautiful. So, I started breaking out my old pink floyd lp's again and rediscovered how great a song "Fat Old Sun" is.


There's no doubt that when I heard Pink Floyd's "Fat old sun" for the first time, I seriously thought it was something off of The Beatles "Abbey Road". It's easy to say that because BOTH bands were engineered by Alan Parsons at the time, and Alan would come be to known for his masterpiece "Dark Side of The Moon".

Anyways, this has always been one of my favorite Floyd tracks, and I often though of covering it. So we did. We hope you like it. If you've never heard the original track before, you can find it on Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" album. We did this for fun, and it probably won't be on any album we're putting out anytime soon. So enjoy it while you can.


cheers,
Joe