Review
Genre and Mood
Zwicker’s Sleepwalking feat. Jamie Lloyd belongs to an album about dreams. It is electronic music on the quiet side of the dance floor; Discogs files Songs of Lucid Dreamers under deep house, downtempo and disco. The mood is dreamy and introspective, a singer half awake over a producer’s textures.
Song Summary
The song began with a remix. After Zwicker remixed one of Jamie Lloyd’s tracks, released on Future Classic, he became a big fan of what Compost Records calls Lloyd’s “blue eyed soul meets folk voice” and suggested working together. Lloyd is from Australia but wrote these lyrics while he was in Europe, “so it is no surprise that in his lyrics he is dreaming too”. The credits give the music to Cyril Boehler and the words to Lloyd. It is the fifth of twelve tracks on the album, 4:33 long.
Musical Breakdown
No review we found describes Sleepwalking section by section; the reviews describe the album, and this page passes on what they heard.
The Voice
Lloyd’s voice is the song’s centre: the label hears soul and folk in it, and PopMatters calls him an Australian DJ and crooner.
The Production
PopMatters described Zwicker’s sound on the album as stark, minimalist, often moody electronic textures with plenty of analog hisses and screeches. Off The Radar heard expansive, futuristic soundscapes and organic, percussive beats.
The Theme
Zwicker said that most of the songs are about dreams, written by him and his guests: “In my dreams and songs I am a lucid dreamer.”
Concepts in Focus
Sleepwalking shows the <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist on a producer’s album. Songs of Lucid Dreamers has a different guest on almost every track, among them Heidi Happy, Olivera Stanimirov, Billy Oden and Matt Didemus of Junior Boys, and Jamie Lloyd sings twice, here and on Sui’s Knee. PopMatters found that the guests lend character while the overall feel stays consistent.
The collaboration came out of a remix. A remixer works with the separate parts of a recording, the voice alone among them, and it was through that work that Zwicker came to want Lloyd on his own record.
Artistic Context
Zwicker is the alias of Cyril Boehler, a producer, composer and DJ from Zurich. Before the album he released vinyl on BearFunk, Compost Black Label and Get Physical; the label calls his style a warm mixture of mutated disco, house, electro and pop. Compost released Songs of Lucid Dreamers on 24 April 2009 on CD and digitally. Hear another of its guest songs in Zwicker – Oddity (feat. Olivera Stanimirov).
Impact and Reception
PopMatters gave the album 6 out of 10 and named Ping Pong Muses and Oddity as its highlights; Off The Radar predicted it would turn some heads. Neither singled out Sleepwalking. It is here for its voice, a crooner dreaming of somewhere else over Zurich electronics. Listen late, with the lights low.
