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About

Slaapwel Records is a small record label specialized in music to fall asleep to.

Wim Maesschalck aka Wixel, who started the label, often found himself lying awake in bed, not sleepy enough to fall asleep, not lively enough to keep doing stuff. He figured it would be good if there was more music that soundtracks the thin border between being asleep and lying awake, deliberately choosing the sleepy side of things. So he set out, looking for people that would be good at making mind-soothing songs.

He asked them to write a sleep-inducing record, he listened to it, and when he failed to reach the end because he fell asleep, he released it as a musical record. All artists are various people he met through the years, different yet all connected with their unique talent, yet all very good at making "boring" music. This is not an insult.

"I love their music to death and I think they are all very capable of making wonderful sleep-inducing songs. In any case, don't make too much of it. It is all just good fun. Sleepy fun."

And that is still the philosophy of Slaapwel Records today. 

 

Demo Policy

We're really humbled by all the requests for releasing a record.

It's very flattering you think Slaapwel could be a good home, but, in all honesty: if you made an album and you're looking for a label to release it: Slaapwel can't do that for you.

Slaapwel only releases albums specifically made for people to fall asleep to. Much like scientists, we do a test with each submission before releasing it.

If you want to make something special, feel free to send it over. We promise we'll try it out, if it works, we'll get back to you, if it doesn't, we prefer staying quiet because it is no fun to say it didn't work. :-) 


Entries in Slaapwel (2)

Monday
Jul042016

Slaapwel xiii: 'Filament' by Gareth Davis

Dear sleepy friends!

Last year, somewhere in october, I attended a very interesting performance by clarinetist Gareth Davis (Miasmah, collaborations with Machinefabriek, Merzbow etc.) and Erik Skodvin. I was, however, suffering from a very nasty jetlag - which made the performance even more interesting, hovering between sleep and being awake.

Afterwards, Gareth coincidentally (or not?) offered me a piece he made for Slaapwel, called 'Filament':

"A short while back I was doing some work on a theatre project and one of the tracks was all about ending/finality and so on. It's kind of dark perhaps for sleeping but, that being said, it seemed like maybe it could still work as part of the series!"

And, well, yes, it is!

We proudly present you slaapwel xiii: 'Filament' by Gareth Davis.

CD comes in handfolded arigatopack with stitched cover. Mastered by Ian Hawgood, Photography by Frédéric D. Oberland, Design by ORDNER

 

Order your copy / download here.


Enjoy + have a good sleep!

 

//Stijn, Slaapwel Records



 

Sunday
Dec112011

Do The Boats Dream Of Electric Fritz Pfleumer?

The Boats are British duo Andrew Hargreaves & Craig Tattersall. They’ve been on our radar for a long, looong time and finally we’re able to announce that they’ve finished an incredible nighttime soundtrack for slaapwel records. Do The Boats Dream Of Electric Fritz Pfleumer? is a 36 minute composition based on tape loops - their trademark sound covered in (star)dust, gentle static and muffled magnetism. Think William Basinski & Wouter Van Veldhoven.

To accompany the thin border between being asleep & lying awake, they translated the function of dreams into sound. According to one theory about dreams, they act as a way for the brain to discard all of its thoughts, making space for another day of ideas and impressions. This led them to use tape loops and a rudimentary tape delay unit to soundtrack and re-create a soft reset of your brain.

The CD comes in a cardboard sleeve, with a stitched photograph and a brief explanation by The Boats themselves. It's yours for the sweet price of 8 euro + shipping. We've printed 300 copies and they are available now at our webstore.