As a fourth of experimental pop group, Animal Collective, Josh Dibb has remained fabulously busy over the course of the past ten years. Known in all musical endeavors as Deakin, Dibb waited until 2016 to release his debut studio project, Sleep Cycle, released on Animal Collective’s family label, My Animal Home.
With AC’s last full-length, Painting With, coming in February, Deakin slated the album for an April release. Fans of the possible solo endeavor to come from the Californian waited far more than a few months as Dibb first began funding a trip to Mali in 2009, not only to play a festival, but to create an album and other art. Seven years and $26,000 later, Sleep Cycle is a make-good.
Comprised of only six selections, four of Sleep Cycle‘s tracks run over six minutes. The EP swims and blends while actually feeling like an extended play as its classification suggests. Recorded between New Orleans, Maryland, and New York, Dibb is also responsible for the cover art.
Deakin’s voice wavers elegantly from the beginnings of “Golden Chords.” Then electropop elements come to play on “Just Am,” the album’s longest and most captivating track as Deakin echoes “I wonder if that’s home.” “Shadow Mine” is a brief, meditative intermission in the middle of the EP, and is followed by the gem, “Footy.” “Seed Song” is another submersed tune that trods along to the beginning of “Good House,” a somnolent folk ending to a mostly electronic album. Deakin gracefully steps outside his psychedelic bubble within Animal Collective into an open range of influences new to the Baltimore quartet’s faithful.
Recommended If You Like: Animal Collective, Chad VanGaalen, Cass McCombs
Recommended Tracks: 4 (Footy), 6 (Good House), 2 (Just Am)
Do Not Play: None
Written by Harrison Hipp on 04/25/16