Jamie xx: Sleep Sound
Space songs made from NASA Voyager recordings, dancing to Jamie xx vibrations, and more in the music we tweeted this week
Inspired by a fateful encounter on a train, artist Sofia Mattioli’s video for Jamie xx’s superb single “Sleep Sound” vividly illustrates the ability of music to reach our souls even if we can’t physically hear it. Over Jamie xx’s signature ethereal Caribbean percussion-tinged ambient house, members from the Manchester Deaf Centre dance to the music based on the vibrations they hear and interactions with Mattioli. Far from the tear-jerking YouTube videos of cochlear implant patients hearing for the first time, Mattioli’s piece suggests the opposite: deafness doesn’t necessarily mean something’s missing, it means experiencing differently. And different, in this case, is beautiful.
