Appropriately enough, our last band profile of 2009 features Sleepy Sun, a San Francisco psych-rock band that made a big impact this year with the release of their debut album, Embrace. Sleepy Sun formed in Santa Cruz, a community with a strong pedigree for contemporary psych (e.g., Comets on Fire, Mammatus), before relocating to SF and attracting the attention of the All Tomorrows’ Parties-affiliated label ATP Recordings. The band supported Embrace with tours across the US and Europe, somehow finding time to work on new recordings as well.
Embrace has both an immediate and a lasting appeal. Whether you’re drawn first to the charismatic vocal hooks or potent electric guitars, the album strikes, to our ears, a great balance between melodic rock and psych experimentation. Perhaps surprisingly, the balance appears to have emerged less from any preconceived plan than from the intuition of a group of talented performers whose musicianship is evident in their fiery live shows. We can’t wait to find out how this intuition plays out on Sleepy Sun’s new recordings.
We sat down with Bret and Evan a little while back to discuss the band’s latest recordings, their extensive touring schedule, and their Santa Cruz roots. We’ve also included three great songs from Embrace in the episode.
