Ken Park releases new single “Sleep Paralysis”
Liam Creamer’s project as Ken Park is back with a mystical tune, “Sleep Paralysis”. Speaking with Liam, I learn that this sound is inspired by an inclination to surrender to a world that seems increasingly fever dreamish.
“Come into my dreams and peel the lids behind my eyes and make me scream, I cannot scream. Fear leaves me paralysed inside my bed; I cannot scream.” — Ken Park.
A smattering of Kafkaesque imagery springs from these words and drives home a sense of absurdism. “It’s my way of saying that y’know, I am powerless and that I have no control over something and so should just gracefully surrender” he explains. In contrast to the powerful voice in his prior single “Nosebleed”, the lyrical pronunciation here is glazed with a whimsical tint that glides by like a gentle breeze. “’Carrie & Lowell‘ by Sufjan Stevens is one of my favourite albums”, he says. “The things he sings about, conceptually, are very heavy but sung in a very light way”. This juxtaposition adds to the melancholic beauty while the acoustics at play materialised from the resulting nostalgia. “It was definitely the concrete for this track”.
This was not originally the intended statement. As with his other songs he feels his way around and eventually discovers a desired direction. He explains that he wrote and recorded this song in fragments, the first of which came to fruition at the beginning of his music career in a coastal town in Mexico, where he has family. “The first and second half were recorded a year and a half apart” he says. “I had to finish it. I had to go back there, sit in the same spot and recreate the conditions that I was in to do that”. Undergoing this, the idea of “capturing the moment” was galvanised and became a guiding light for the track’s atmosphere, which, just as in Sufjan Stevens’ work (i.e. Call Me By Your Name), feels deeply attuned to the world’s spirit.
The finale settles into a gentler harmony of soothing synths and fainter plucks, which came from a desire to end with a diffusion of anxious tension, to zoom out and realise the lightness and wonder against the often-uncanny brush strokes on life’s canvas. And in this more peaceful state, having accepted surrender, Ken Park can identify the sleep paralysis demon he wants to see next.
“David Lynch. I want him to be there filling my head with wild ideas.” — Ken Park.
Stream “Sleep Paralysis” below:
