264 HOURS OF SLEEP is an Art Pop Duo consisting of Christina Ruf and Markus W: Schneider.
With their new album “Escalator", 264 HOURS OF SLEEP lean more towards pop music while continuing along the experimental path set by their self-titled debut album, which Austrian author and radio broadcaster Fritz Ostermayer (radio FM4) described as a "wonderful collection of individual experimental zest." Their "experimental sound work and idiosyncratic blossoming of sounds" (Michael Ternai, music information center Austria) finds a home in elaborately arranged, avant-garde-tinged pop songs that still maintain their lightness.
Once again, Markus W. Schneider and Christina Ruf have taken the freedom to surpass themselves and their own concept of exchanging ideas remotely between Denmark and Austria. In a way, the music began to dream of itself. The result is 10 wonderfully mood-shifting tracks based on excerpts, individual sound fragments, looped melodies from their live performances. The new and unusual aspects of their soundscapes blend with elements from the past.
The album "Escalator" features both catchy melodies and thought-provoking lyrical passages. Acoustic and raw distorted guitars blend with ethereal cello orchestras. Electronic sounds supply at times fragility, and in other moments outcry. Spanish drummer Juan Dahmen's groovy drums and richly exploited percussion parts provide the rhythmic foundation for it all.Schneider's lyrics are based on newly assembled found pieces, stream of consciousness passages, and fragments from texts generated by artificial intelligence. They reflect the tension between the individual and the group. "There are no borders in the clouds, there are no islands in the crowds." How do we change and what can we leave behind? Is an apparent gain a loss - a porous vessel, a study of loss?
Escalator is much more than can be put into words. It is an album that must not only be heard but experienced at its deepest level. Escalator is a trip. From the obvious, tangible, and recognizable to the transcendent, distant, and unattainable. Between illusion and reality, surreal and concrete. The movement between deep sleep and wide-awake consciousness. A lucid dream.