- Smartly executed house, techno and electro from the Melbourne duo.
- Corey Kikos and Maryos Syawish released their first Sleep D record when they were 18 and living in Frankston, a sleepy Melbourne suburb. By then, they had a blog called Butter Sessions, which eventually became a mix series, party and label that has helped establish a new wave of Melbourne producers. Moving away from the deep house and disco that once defined Melbourne, the duo, AKA Sleep D, established a more eclectic style spanning electro, techno and breakbeat alongside artists like Roza Terenzi and Lou Karsh. Now Sleep D solidify their own contribution with Rebel Force, an album of ultra-polished dance tracks loaded with melody and delivered with gusto.
On Rebel Force, Kikos and Syawish delight in sounds some would consider cheesy—there are moments that echo boisterous elements of electro, prog house or trance, like the belching bass synth in "Central," or the pulsating arps of "Red Rock (IV Mix)" (imagine Petar Dundov driving through the outback). But there's no irony in Sleep D. Every style on Rebel Force, from new-school electro ("Special Sector") to staggered dub techno ("Reggatron"), has a sheen that makes it go down smoothly. The closing track, "Pearlescent Skyline," is a Sasha-style banger with a glimmering chord progression, the perfect mix of wistful and triumphant, that begs for a peak-time drop. It's as easy to imagine it echoing across a 20,000-person field as it is a sweaty basement.
That makes Rebel Force an unusually strong dance music album, which is even more impressive considering that, "Jazz" aside, there are no diversions or experiments. It's an LP of buoyant house and techno that wants nothing more than to make you dance. With Butter Sessions, Kikos and Syawish re-established their hometown as a dance music hotspot, fostering international connections with scenes in Vancouver, Montreal and beyond. Rebel Force underlines that globalism—it comes via Anthony Naples and Jenny Slattery's New York label Incienso—while reinforcing the duo's homegrown sound.
Tracklist01. Red Rock (IV Mix)
02. Central
03. Danza Mart
04. Twin Turbo
05. Jazz
06. Fade Away
07. Reggatron
08. Special Sector
09. Morning Sequence
10. Pearlescent Skyline