Yagya — Sleepygirls. Brief story behind the gorgeous dub techno album

Adalsteinn Gudmundsson (Yagya): “I based the album on loops I called Sleepygirl and I wanted to keep that name. Since the album is a collection of tracks called Sleepygirl 1, 2, etc I felt it was natural to use the plural. When I think about the word Sleepygirls I picture a calm, young woman resting comfortably on a warm summer day. I based Sleepygirls on how I remembered Rhythm of Snow and Rigning. I try not to listen to them. I used the same ideas about slow, atmospheric techno and organic-like repetitiveness.

But in contrast to these two previous albums I wanted to make it a bit less ambient, with more prominent drums and keeping the tempo steady (~116 pbm) throughout the whole album. I didn’t want to repeat myself too much so I did some experiments with mixing tracks together, added live instruments to a couple of tracks and worked with Japanese vocalists, without directing them too much. I like having Japanese vocals on the album, since I don’t understand the lyrics; it makes it more mysterious for me.”