Sleeper in Oligopolis

Sleep Mathew's music lives in the margins—messy, immediate, and unpolished by design. At its core are raw, one-off hardware jams on MPC, Casio RZ-1 and Yamaha TG-33, played through once and left with their imperfections intact. Some recordings were committed straight to mono with patch notes scribbled on paper, echoing the methods of '70s Tangerine Dream. Others came from treating the DAW itself as an instrument, each render producing a different, unrepeatable version.

The sound is inspired by '90s computer-free techno and the rougher strains of Dutch and American rhythm traditions, with touchpoints including Terrence Dixon, Jamal Moss, Ellis De Havilland, Delroy Edwards and Scan 7. Cold Blow's Janne once called parts of it "Actress-like," which amused the artist—Sleep Mathew hadn't encountered Actress until recently. But the comparison clicks: Actress, too, wanders deliberately along the edge of wrongness, a space where Sleep Mathew feels most at home.

Sleep Mathew isn't new to Cold Blow. The artist first appeared on the Braindancing split EP (as Larry Neverheard with longtime collaborator Forehard), then contributed a track to the label's 5-year compilation. This release stands apart, gathering its own set of recordings and marking the first time Sleep Mathew steps out fully solo.

This isn't really club gear. It's music for private motion: headphone walks, late-night rituals, turntable test presses. The phrase "Järvenpää electro" was coined by a friend, nodding to the small Finnish town—best known as the home of composer Jean Sibelius—to capture weird music with elements not fit for the salon. There's no scene, no manifesto—just the hum of old gear, a couple of beers, and the decision to record rather than revise. Imperfections are the point. Nothing here has been Bob Clearmountain'd.