Album Review: Sapna, Sapna
One need not look farther than the painting by Gustave Doré used for its cover art to reason that the intention of Nashville trio Sapna — also all-caps: SAPNA — on their self-titled debut is toward immersion. And sure enough, the four-song, 48-minute outing plays into that in headphone-ready fashion, with coursing threads of drone and effects, manipulated feedback and various otherworldly noisescapes, all while maintaining a heavy meditation such that, when opener “The Vessel” (12:16) seems to blossom after five minutes of initial drone into its wall-of-fuzz and nodder groove, vocals calling out a chorus laced with twisting delay, the weight feels so complete as to remind of earlier Ufomammut‘s cosmic innovations.
The band would seem to have been born out of the more vintage-minded Red Feather, in which all three members — guitarist/vocalist Kevin Conlon, bassist/vocalist Ryon Westover (also of ElonMusk, etc.), drummer Logan Kirby — featured, but the direction here is purposefully atmospheric, a take on heavy post-rock that, with production by Westover at Grey Gardens and, for “The Vessel,” by Andy Putnam at The Flamingo, a mix by Ben McLeod (All Them Witches, Westing), and mastering by Mikey Allred at Dark Art Audio (All Them Witches, Across Tundras), comes to life with a dirt-psych vibe even as it never seems to quite touch the ground. Whether or not there’s actually any synth I don’t know — they don’t list any, and one struggles to think of a reason they’d keep it secret — but if there isn’t, then the image of pedal boards a city block wide comes to mind.
In any case, that’s not a complaint as “The Vessel” unfurls itself with deceptively-paced movement, seeming glacial while holding what in most contexts is probably a rock tempo in Kirby‘s drums; the quintessential “rolling right along.” If the band’s goal is immersion, one can only call Sapna an outright success. The LP — due for vinyl release in 2023 through St. Louis-based Infinite Spin Records — makes you feel like you’re swimming through it.
“The Vessel” is followed by “Oracle” (11:40), which begins similarly quiet on a fade-in — that sure sounds like a keyboard — but shifts more quickly, still smoothly, into feedback and its layered-over lead guitar intro shortly before two minutes in. At 2:30, the song doesn’t so much burst to life as pop like a lava bubble into its verse, with the vocals vague and echoing but a definite presence over the slower and, yes, molten, rolling procession. There are loosely cultish vibes, and perhaps that’s where the title came from, but the riff and the dirge that accompanies are the focus and despite something of a turn in ambience, the aesthetic in which Sapna are working renders the idea of an interrupted flow laughable.
The aesthetic is the flow. If the album isn’t flowing, it’s because you’ve hit pause. Go back and try again. A layer of backing vocals about six minutes in adds to the ethereal revelry of “Oracle,” giving a bright, classyc (that was a typo but I’m leaving it because it works) shimmer to the post-midsection unfurling, and the prominent buzz of the central riff of the song soon enough leads into a channel-spanning slow-scorcher of a guitar solo, vocals stepping back to allow due space before resuming in what on future releases might manifest as a full dual-vocal melodic wash and here feels nascent but still like an incantation.
There is a settling down as the bass rumbles forward. The song passes its 10th minute and soon gives way to residual distortion, the feedback from whence it came — did it ever leave? — and indeed, that keyboard-sounding maybe-keyboard returns, ending what will push the limits of a vinyl’s side A with trippy triumphalism, the band standing astride the landscape they’ve created and naming it thusly, maybe not interstellar conquerors or anything so implicitly violent, but explorers with a clear purpose of discovery and realization that feels as much about their experience of worship as that of the audience. So be it, shared.
Humming out a minimalist drone for its first minute and a half, “Veil” (8:02) rises like a morning star circa 1:40 with a stately line of feedback and holds back drums to let the vocals — more direct in the mix, more discernibly enunciated, still coated in effects — take a more featured role. By this point in listening, Sapna‘s hypnosis is in full effect, and even if the song is more than halfway over by the time the first gentle tap of a ride cymbal happens at 4:11, followed by a sweetly noodled, somewhat melancholic excursion of lead guitar, the time taken matters not even a little; patience is an asset. The solo grows in volume until at 6:42 there’s a crash-in and the heavier bass and ultra-fluidity reveals the payoff for what’s been a build all the while, happening almost without the listener realizing.
If you can hold your consciousness to it, that moment is especially glorious, but I’m not sure not-trancing out is the way to go. Choose your adventure. Considering the path they took to get there, the three-piece don’t dwell in that apex all that long, instead giving over to closer “SAPNA” (16:01), which like “The Vessel” before it sets its foundation in resonant drone before even letting the cymbals in on the flow, a first four minutes spent in meditation before the guitar announces the next stage, a motion gentle but not staid for the next minute or so leading into a heavier stretch that marches a bit in complement to the album’s beginning, with chug and stretch to coincide. Vocals enter after six minutes in, in what feels like a culmination carrying over the prominent positioning of “Veil” with the heft of “Oracle” and “The Vessel” in summary of many of the elements being cast throughout the entire procession.
They march like pilgrims, repeated lines about dust in the sun and holy light shining arriving, departing, a solo holding sway until at 10:52 they kick into another level of fuzzed fullness, another solo entering the left channel after 11 minutes in, the jam by then already pointed at the nearest star and gone. Crushing and soaring, Sapna give Sapna its due in both the ensuing crescendo and the drifting psychedelia of noise and drone that follows, the fadeout of “SAPNA” seeming to land at silence about 30 seconds before the track actually ends.
Maybe that’s the band giving the listener time to process what they’ve just heard, gently returning their audience to reality, or even mourning the passing of the album itself, or maybe not. In the end, the universe will die and nothing will matter. What I know is that the more one is willing to go with Sapna, the farther one will go. With their first release, Sapna not only bask in the tenets of longform heavy psychedelia, but underscore their rummaging-through-dimensions with a sense of purpose in itself; it is therefore it is because it is. The abiding worshipful feel of their tones and the construction of mood and world here aren’t to be understated, and neither is the potential for forward growth as they move beyond this initial offering. I won’t tell you how to hear it, only to approach with an open mind prepared to meet it on its own level for best results, which easily justify that effort.
SAPNA, SAPNA (2022)
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Tags: Infinite Spin Records, Nashville, Sapna, Sapna Self-titled, self-titled, Tennessee, Unsigned bands
