Cape Town’s insurgent psychedelic post-punk outfit Sueños have been on our radar for a while now. They featured as our #SpotlightOn artist back in April, in anticipation of their debut EP False Dawn which today finally sees the light of day.
The five-track project centres around the almost one-thousand-year-old writings of Persian poet Omar Khayyam, who speaks of a mysterious “false dawn that streaks the east” in his book The Rubaiyat. It’s an allusion to the interplay between light and dark, and the opposing forces that govern nature.
Embracing duality, Sueños deliver an EP that is both subdued and frenzied, moving from shoegaze surf-rock into the experimental waters of post-punk jazz. “Anima” perhaps best marks this transition. The visceral guitar riffs of the previous two tracks seem to wither away, in favour of an ambient soundscape that slowly builds to a dazzling psych-rock tapestry.
Melodies run wild. The instrumentation grows more untamed. Think King Krule’s Man Alive! if it was injected with a good dose of homegrown rock. There’s a strain running through this EP that is alive with unpredictable energy, like the rough waves of Sueños’ very own “Sonic Seas”.
Labyrinthine. Volatile. Shadowy. There are the words I would use to describe False Dawn. But perhaps the most striking quality of this brilliant debut is the underlying feeling of nostalgia that seeps through its feral chords. Like I’ve been to this place before, like I’ve seen those towering waves, watching the storm as it roars outside my window.
