Sleep Chamber - Sins Ov Obsession mp3

This is a studio album of remixes, 'versions' , unreleased & live tracks, but is still a whole, complete-sounding record. It opens with a cover version of THE NORMAL's "Warm Leatherette". At first I thought this track a little stilted in style, but it grows on you - it's full of sudden noises & subliminal sounds which make it a lot more interesting than the original. Next up is a remix of "Fetish" (presumably from "Spellbound Submission"), a large, repetitive spatial beat with lyrics like 'move, move, fetish,fetish, lingering in my mouth, dripping from my fingers, throbbing from my flesh, fetish, fetish'. Next up is 'version 2' of "Kum Kleopatra", erotic in a primal, gently savage way, the complex heavy, almost ethnic drum patterns meandering in set forms, like fractals of hot sweat & dry bone while the vocalist evokes orgasm. Next is "Finger On The Trigger" - call it what you will, pornographic, Onanistic or erotic, but you cannot remain in some way unaffected by this. The girl's voice saying "I'm gonna fuck myself with this/I'm gonna imagine this is you/can imagine you're fucking me/there's so many things we can do" before grunting and groaning for the next nine minutes or so while SLEEP CHAMBER add strange feedback noises. The next track is an 'unreleased' version of "Kiss Ov Death" which is actually a strange version of "Mrs. Goodbar", full of high pitched voices and distant noises rising up with a vengence over a fairly normal continual drum onslaught. Then along comes "Nurse With Garders", a non-beat thing which would have suited a THROBBING GRISTLE album with it's weird soporific rising and falling wind instrument sounds, all of which eventually succumbs to a repeated drum rhythm. "Babes Ov Babylon", previously unreleased follows this, a simplistic slice of drum-and-bass with SLEEP CHAMBER's noise glowing through it as if a dangerous radiation. Another 'unreleased' track follows, a quiet cymbal-beat-over-whispered-vocals thing, brooding like some low-risk virus while the singer whispers to us about her 'red panties'. And the object of his desires gets all excited again, grunting and groaning in orgiasmic delight. The last two tracks were recorded live at the 'Ground Zero' on the 8th February 1989. The first is "That's Romance", with the vocalist's 'Throat-Full-Of-Phlegm' voice struggling to gain release from the imprisonment of the beat. Finally, the album closes with a live version of the ol' fave "Kiss The Whip", a catchy if perpetually repeating track - one of SLEEP CHAMBER's best tracks, and a good live version of it to boot.
Not a bad starting point for those of you interested in this group. A handful of their better tracks polished up and re-released in a nice piece of reflective plastic.

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.