The trio behind SY3 develop, on Sleepwalker, a pop conception that feels like a dream state. Sonically, the Chinese-American artists Kelly Guan, Alex Ho and Phil Cho move between gentle downtempo, shimmering dance music and R’n’B structures. What emerges from this is something cinematic, at once iridescent and faintly intoxicating.
Soft synth surfaces overlap, combining with Kelly Guan’s buttery vocals to form a silk-fine sonic texture. The music feels meditative, almost sensual in its calm. The title track, »梦游 Sleepwalker«, tells in Cantonese of a sleepwalking girl sitting alone on a balcony, wondering where she might have gone the previous night. Accompanied by hovering saxophone lines and touches of traditional Chinese melody, an especially dense atmosphere unfolds here.
Sleepwalker is therefore more than just another dreamy ambient production. The combination of electronic grooves, instrumental solo passages and Guan’s soft voice generates a narrative that unfolds like a fairy tale or a dream. An album that explains less than it gently, hypnotically draws the listener into its own sonic space.
Sleepwalker
