Sleepy Jean - Shoot Me in a Dream
Flying Colours Music
Released July 21st, 2023
Released on July 21st, the first full-length album from Sleepy Jean is a nostalgic alt-country offering full of mournful melodies and tipsy guitars. Katey Gatta, the Ontario-based singer-songwriter behind the project, released her first EP, Idle Hands, in 2021, and has returned with glamourous intensity on the new record, Shoot Me in a Dream.
The album abounds with haunting storytelling over catchy country-western soundscapes. Its opening track, “Too Soon,” features a loungey bassline and charmingly sleazy lead guitar, but over the alluring groove of the accompaniment Gatta delivers darkly poetic lyrics with a sincerity that transports listeners into a story that feels ominous and political.
The nostalgia is strong in the 6/8-time swing and gentle horn section harmonies of “Once Held My Heart,” which conjures images of partners in step at a 50’s high school dance, before sinking into a brief prog-rock bridge carried by overdriven guitar. Gatta’s robust singing voice is a highlight of the album, and her range is especially apparent here as well as on “No Tomorrow,” an upbeat yet sinister track in which she enigmatically sings, “so you seek and so you find, a sleight of hand played in your mind, you’ll twist into that rhyme.”
Like other favourite contemporary alt-country artists (Daniel Romano or Shakey Graves come to mind), Sleepy Jean nods respectfully to the classic sounds of her forebears while writing with a tongue-in-cheek irony that feels distinctly modern. “I know it’s never been sink or swim… it’s sink or die,” she pines in “Sweet Tooth,” an old-school country banger that narrates a tale of Tanqueray and turbulent love before ending in a cathartically off-kilter drunken guitar solo.
Gatta’s songwriting also draws on serious and personal stories. She says of writing the album, “I started to realize how much I had drawn from my father’s family story lyrically. My dad was born in Uganda to Parsi parents … My father’s family fled to India and were never able to return to Uganda.” Themes of desperation and grief surface throughout the album, coming across as tragic and real, regardless of the music’s theatricality.
And wonderfully theatrical it is, often having the feel of a dusty cinematic adventure from the days of whatever came before VHS. “Six Feet Deep (with Love)” pairs Gatta’s powerful voice with fierce, tremolo-soaked surf rock leads over a galloping rhythm section—with a keening trumpet solo to round out the drama—while “Human of the Race” features a twisty walking bassline supporting breathy vocals in a love song that could be straight out of a 60’s spy movie.
The penultimate track, “That’s Ok, That’s Alright,” finally reveals candidly some of the influences you were pretty sure you’d been hearing all along: “I’ve got some whiskey and some Joni to keep me warm tonight.” Also cited are “two beers and Billie,” and “three cigarettes and some Patsy.” Sure enough, the song evokes the cheeky poetry of Joni Mitchell, while “Lonely as I Can Be” recalls the forlorn country sentimentalism of Patsy Cline, and “Like a Lover,” has the understated ache of a Billie Holiday standard.
While its sound pulls from the music of decades past, Shoot Me in a Dream has the timeless feel of a cult classic-to-be. Sleepy Jean has created a record that skillfully blends romance and reality, and is well worth the listen.
- Ava Glendinning
