If you plug "music and insomnia" into PubMed-- the online library of scientific journal articles-- you get 24 results. Scientists have tested the ability of music to induce sleep in a wide variety of populations, from nurses and elementary school kids to abused women and senior citizens. And perhaps not surprisingly, it usually seems to work, improving parameters like time to sleep onset, nighttime awakenings, and longer sleep duration-- no news to this reviewer, who spent one entire tense year using Sigur Rós as a cheaper form of Ambien.
A lot of these studies are opaque about the specific music actually used to induce sleep, but in one-- a 2005 paper from Case Western Reserve University-- there's a genre rundown: "synthesizer (new age), harp (eclectic), piano (popular oldies), orchestra (classical), and slow jazz." Music for Insomnia, the latest in Asthmatic Kitty Records' Library Catalog Music Series, is none of these, though it may perhaps be all of them. Credited to Lowell Brams, the co-founder of Asthmatic Kitty, and featuring contributions from his stepson (and the other co-founder) Sufjan Stevens and Bryce Dessner of the National, it's a record that most definitely would not have been used in any sleep research.
Were Music for Insomnia's eight abstract tracks to induce sleep, it would likely be a pretty agitated sort. A good two-thirds of the music here is straight-up nightmare fuel, avant-garde experimentalism that resists any traditional rhythmic or melodic landing points and triggers physiological reactions of discomfort and paranoia more than relaxation and peacefulness. Consider opener "Chattering Garden Trolls", where even the title suggest a sadistic sort of slumberland. Within, Brams and his compatriots establish the project's palette: a bed of wheezing, dark drones where fragments of drums, guitar, and synthesizer phase in and out, like a box full of instruments falling down a long flight of stairs, very slowly and irregularly. It's sinister as hell, and yet doesn't hold a candle to the feedback shrieks of "Short Circadian Partita" or the 12-plus minutes of "Hypnagogic Hallucination", where the mélange is joined by the kind of high-pitched piano runs that usually foretell that a sorority girl is about to get stabbed by a dude in a mask.
Also as lengthy is the far more soothing "Alpha to Theta", where a pixie-like synthesizer zips through the gaps of fluttery guitar and piano, producing a glittery soundscape reminiscent of Stevens' electronic Enjoy Your Rabbit, though less rhythmic. The only regular-tempo respite of Music for Insomnia is found on "Dream About Vince Guaraldi", where a gently chugging preset and an optimistic bassline provides some much-needed structure as the synthesizers frolic and a wah-wah effect chimes in.
Dessner shows up only on the last track, "A Cross Section of Clown Mountain"-- by far the least busy track on the entire collection and another feedback world. But unlike "Short Circadian Partita", Dessner's involvement lends the track some forward motion, journeying from eerie beginnings to finding beauty in the feedback currents at the resolution. It's also the only track that could ethically be used in a study of music and insomnia, as one could easily see a person's tension and consciousness melting away along its quiet path.
