The album which made it to number five on our list of favourites from 2013 was one that came with a stamp of quality attached. In recent years Small Plates Records has become home to a number of top quality acts and each release offers something exciting and incredible for you to enjoy. And that’s exactly what happened with Orlando based Day Joy, craftsmen of fine dreamy folk music.
Go To Sleep, Mess is an album that we enjoyed immensely but properly fell in love with on a random and long walk through the streets of London, earphones in and dreams being made before our very ears. As we walked for mile upon mile the album was placed on repeat and our footsteps began to feel lighter. The architecture and cityscape around us, the flow of people walking by, the hustle and bustle and energy within the streets and alleyways took on new qualities as the leisurely sounds melted into our brain.
Songs trickle gently along, rippling before they unexpectedly swell and rise; lifting you high and carrying you away on a beautiful tide of delicate emotion. Their spectral melodies create a sense of blurriness, like the world seen through rain speckled glasses. Your mind is distorted and made fuzzy by the echoing, swirling sounds and vocals as they shimmer and float on the breeze.
Amongst the haze and the echo, bubbling elements of folk, country and pop can be heard, along with subtle but persuasive rhythms, strings and synths. It is a heady and intoxicating combination and getting lost within this dreamy soundscape, as the world passes by unnoticed and unblemished, is a dangerously easy thing to do but, even after 6 or so miles of walking, an experience we absolutely adored.
’Go To Sleep Mess’ is on Small Plates Records and can be ordered here.
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