Saturday Sleep-In: “Sonic Titan” Live in Amsterdam, 2019

This video of “Sonic Titan” is from October 2019, five years ago. That puts it on the tail end of Sleep‘s live activity as they wound down the band headed into the woefully well-timed early-2020 hiatus — because if you’re gonna take a break from touring and let Al Cisneros, Matt Pike and Jason Roeder go about their other bands, business, and lives, when the entire world is about to spend a year at home is (sadly) a good time to do it — and it was filmed at Melkweg, in Amsterdam, presumably by ‘Amsterdam Metal Scene,’ which is the YouTube account that posted it. The last time I saw the band, who remain one of stoner metal’s most crucial, influential and righteous acts — if they were playing tonight, you’d both know about it and want to go — was at Roadburn 2019, also coincidentally in the Netherlands.

They played two sets (review here and here), and their being there was a victory lap for the reunion Pike and Cisneros had begun a decade earlier, bringing Roeder (also Neurosis, Helen Money, etc.) in to fill the drummer role originally held by Chris Hakius, as well as a celebration of the studio album The Sciences (discussed here, review here), which came out in 2018 as the band’s first release in about 15 years. It was a big deal, and a strong association in my mind with the course of the band. Is it sheer happenstance that Sleep took a break and the entire world once again went to shit?Sleep (Photo by JJ Koczan) History will tell. Or, more likely, not.

The merits of “Sonic Titan” likely speak for themselves, and I’m not claiming to have unearthed anything landmark here, it’s just a video of Sleep killing it as they did. Riding his own groove, Cisneros is animated in what was a highlight of The Sciences — I mean, it wasn’t “Giza Butler,” but it was up there — and had been issued as a live bonus track for the 2003 Tee Pee Records version of Dopesmoker (discussed here), some five years after they originally disbanded. You could easily do worse for a wakeup call on a Saturday morning, and while I could sit and expound at length — this week someone whose opinions I respect called The Obelisk, ‘Doom’s Home for Longform,’ which made me feel both extra-fancy like peanuts and longwinded — about Sleep‘s legacy, impact on heavy underground everything, and the riffs, riffs, riffs, in the spirit of it being the weekend, I’ll catch the next one. It’s Saturday morning. Shouldn’t we be watching cartoons right now?

Sleep have made a couple appearances since the hiatus, and I assume they’ll do more sooner or later, but as Matt Pike continues to barnstorm with High on Fire, he’s well spoken for time-wise. This year, Cisneros has appeared on the Triptych series of releases from former Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till‘s Harvestman project. Since Neurosis collapsed in 2022, I’m honestly not sure what Roeder‘s been up to due to a minimal social media presence. Fair enough.

Yesterday was The Pecan’s birthday. She’s seven. It was a very Zelda-centered celebration. The Patient Mrs. and I went to her school to read about space, and my mother painted her a black hole with the accretion disk and radiation jets, bought her new pillows and bedsheets with space on them, but most of her presents from us were Zelda merch. That includes a couple new books to read, Creating a Champion and the strategy guide to Twilight Princess, which we haven’t played (yet) but is cool looking and will be fun to read about I’m sure. I hid the presents around the house (plus one on the back yard trampoline) and gave her a paper with Zelda-style clues to find them like sacred relics. My mother did that a few times for me when I was a kid, but it was clues in poems. I always loved it and The Pecan did too.

Last week we had the big party with kids from her class and Girl Scouts, the bounce house and the whole bit. It was about 50 people at the house, but the weather was good so everyone was outside and it was cool. She had a good time. A breeze blew out her candles and that was a hiccup, but we worked it out. It was a great day.

But between that, the rush to get everything done yesterday before school and Scouts were over, and the Quarterly Review that consumed the site for more than two weeks prior, I didn’t want to let it go any further without properly closing out a week, even if that happens like this. There is precedent, but the last time I did a Saturday Sleep-In was 2015, so if you don’t remember, no sweat. I generally don’t post on the weekend, save for exceptional circumstances.

I’ve also been sick since early this past week, an unfortunate and way-too-soon follow-up to a cold I had a couple weeks ago, and harsher. Tuesday and Wednesday I was just about completely on my ass, and The Patient Mrs. had a multi-day school board thing in Atlantic City, so I was solo-parenting too. It was a difficult, draining few days and I haven’t slept much for the coughing, fever, soreness, sinus pressure, congestion, fatigue, on and on. The good news is the last couple days, Thursday, Friday, today, were better, but even yesterday my energy was pretty shortlived. I had to sit down for a minute a few times hiding those presents. Easily worth it, but not the otherwise norm.

But I’m on the mend, even if it’s slow going.

Next week, look out for a Vokonis review, and a look at some new stuff from the universe of Dr. Space, a full album stream for Deaf Lizard and such and sundry around all that. I hope you have a great and safe rest of the weekend, and I’ll catch you back here Monday for more of this ongoing apparently-longform nonsense. Thanks for reading.

FRM.

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2 Responses to “Saturday Sleep-In: “Sonic Titan” Live in Amsterdam, 2019”

  1. Mike M says:

    Hi JJ,

    Appreciate you taking the time to close out the week, it’s one of my favourite parts of following the site. I like to hear how the Pecan is facing her challenges and moving forward.

    Enjoy your Sunday with the family.

    Mike

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