Team Sleep
Woodstock Sessions, Vol. 4

The Applehead Recording is a large farm that also serves as a recording studio; it is located in one of the famous Woodstocks, the one in the state of New York.

We are at the fourth volume of the Woodstock Sessions. An initiative that involves artists, fans from all over the world, and the Applehead, indeed, which offers its spaces and accommodations so that the splendid live shows can be celebrated and experienced to the fullest.

It is the turn of Team Sleep, a band composed of Chino Moreno from the Deftones, Todd Wilkinson, Dj Crook, Rick Verrett, Chuck Doom, and Gil Sharone; a superband formed in the early 2000s with roots in the nineties. They play an experimental rock filled with melancholy and sweetness. An infusion of pain that, presented as they do it, seems to embrace the listener.

On the morning of the concert, the news of the death of the old horse Shadow, a historic resident of the farm, is given, followed by a visit from the event’s participants to the family that took care of it; the mood of the day matches the played songs.

Compared to the eponymous album from which they originate, the songs the band performs live with a new intensity. The way Chino bursts his frustration from the chorus of Blvd. Nights to the second verse reminds how it feels to be desperate. It is a dangerous formula that permeates the short discography of Team Sleep.

Alone, Awake

Chino enunciates the words as someone who has lost all hope would, as a person no longer lucid due to what they feel would say them. Gil Sharone is impeccable, managing to give that something extra.

Ever (Foreign Flag) is the apotheosis of the astral journey for two, with no ground beneath one's feet.

We’ll never come back, ever

The care is at the highest levels, care for the sound and the soul, if one ever existed. I prefer to call it care for the other, now. I hear many night-time anxieties within and not only that. Those who will be struck by this live are those who find themselves in it, amid the reverb and the pain.