In tapping into, and calling forth the past, an artist often skirts the edges of the surreal. Such can be said of Estonia’s Holy Motors, and their new Sleeprydr 7”, which comes out February 24 on Wharf Cat Records. The title a-side is something out of old Hollywood fantasies, a glistening yet brooding cruise down a lightless road towards dubious promise. The slow-motion strumming of chords, effectual and lively, gives way to sultry, meditative vocals that instill feeling with the absence of their own. The melodies are distant, a 60’s surf movie, in and of themselves, but dark. The vocals are something cold and dejected, revived and kept going with the electric power of instrumental nostalgia. From its beginning, it takes its time with you, warbling guitar tremolo massaging over every muscle all the way up to the top of your scalp, and the hushed delivery of the lyrical longing coursing its way through your veins. Distortion and psych effects added to guitar leads towards the latter half of the song, make for an actual and figurative obscurity of the memory’s idea of reality, the lines between romanticism and resentment, are finally muddled and lost.
