It should come as no surprise that the new Sapna single is an album unto itself. Seemingly taken from an impending collection called Drones Vol. 1 — the cover art you can see below was posted with the track on Bandcamp — the 38-minute “Servants” follows last year’s self-titled debut (review here) for the project, who here work as the duo of drummer/vocalist/sitarist Kevin Conlon and producer/synthesist/dronemaker Ryon Westover, which leaves them without drummer Logan Kirby, though whether that’s a permanent change or not, I don’t know.

“Servants” is a sprawl of meditative psych-doom, with drones stretched underneath its central movement of drums, airy vocals and the various synths and keyboards that coincide. It enters its first verse at around three minutes in, where one might expect with such a longform piece the verse would come later, but sit tight, because it’s a slow march from there through a mind-psych landscape and it’s gonna be a while before that voice comes back. Sapna demonstrated a penchant for extended works on the self-titled’s 16-minute eponymous closer, but obviously “Servants” ups that reach significantly, and the drone is at least half the point. “Servants” dwells in its midsection and allows the setting to build itself up organically and to hold for the duration as the band seems to plunge deeper and further into its hypnotic breadth.

I dug the gosh darn heck out of that self-titled, was a pleasant surprise toward the end of last year, so will keep an eye out for more from Sapna about Drones Vol. 1. If “Servants” is the entirety of it, you would not call the volume lacking.

Info from Bandcamp is basically there as a placeholder, but it’s got the credits, so relevant just the same:

DRONES | VOL.1

Mixed/Engineered by Ryon Westover at Grey Gardens
Mastered by Mikey Allred at Dark Art Audio

Kevin Conlon – Drums, Vox, Sitar
Ryon Westover – MS-20, Odyssey, Deepmind 12, Wurlitzer, Harmonium, Tanpura, Mellotron

https://www.facebook.com/sapna.drone/
https://www.instagram.com/sapna.drone/
https://sapna.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/sapna.drone

Sapna, “Servants” (2023)