Label: Troubled Times Tapes – 012
Format: Cassette, Album
Country: New Zealand
Released: 2026
Genre: Rock
Style: Experimental, Lo-fi, Abstract
Gently dazed, somnolent half-songs from NZ’s Sara Rogers and Antony Milton as Sleep Hygiene, via Milton’s own Troubles Times Tapes outpost - a label new to us but one quietly putting out incredible stuff.
NZ underground kingpin Milton’s TTT (somewhat easily confused with the enduring TTT of Will Bankhead) operates as a DIY stable for various projects by or that include members of ramshackle band The Troubled Times, of which Milton is the most active member. This leaves the door wide open to all manner of loose improvisations, garage jams, archival dredging and new collaborations.
Sleep Hygiene falls in the later category. It’s a total daydream of dusty, drifting pop miniatures, each blanketed in cobwebs of delay and iridescent guitar lines perfectly poised to coax eye-lids down to half mast. The duo’s recording practice of jamming in the final moments before hitting the hay wonderfully imbrues these intensely private recordings with a somnambulant tone that’s tricky to capture. You could go around this 100 times and never quite find your way back - perfect music for the twilight hour. (Mint / New - with free DL).
Tracklist
1. Every Single Time 02:03
2. Roll Over 02:32
3. Timeless 00:42
4. Step Forwards 02:56
5. 1995 01:06
6. Taking The Heights 01:58
7. Always Surrender To 03:35
8. Alights 02:12
9. Bev's Quilt 03:23
10. Cloudy Cloudy Moon 02:16
11. Bikes The Plain 03:57
12. Plume 03:05
