The debut album from brothers Beres and Dave Jackson – aka Karoshi, which is Japanese for ‘death by overwork’ – joins a sturdy staple of work by recent Sydney electronica artists. Sleepwalker‘s melancholic title track features PJ Wolf on vocals and, similar to Ivan Vizintin’s appearance on Seekae’s Wool, it provides an accessible hook to pull listeners in; the following track, Like Air, is its instrumental counterpart.
The various guest vocalists, among them Eliza Magill and Michael Bones, slip comfortably in amongst the electronica-and-drums surrounds. While they give each song a distinct angle, it’s on these particular songs that other bands are brought to mind: Russian Doll could easily slip unnoticed onto the Parades alum, while Rusty, with its music-box, accordion and ethereal vocal, is almost a bit too close to Icelandic band Múm for comfort.
It’s the songs without vocals that end up having the most impact here, though the way the album flip-flops between instrumentals and songs with vocals makes for a nice overall balance. Bones is an impeccable beginning, its blistering guitars and tumbling drums giving some throttle beneath the twinkling electronica, but my favourite chunk of the album is the commanding closing trio of songs.
Karoshi may go in several directions from this starting point, but they are clearly at their best when they pare things back to being a family affair.
