"Austin Texas Mental Hospital" begins with the most lovely, somber string quartet melody, each chord playing out slowly and hovering before it moves to the next. But this is SOTL's version of a string quartet: it may be recognizable as actual instruments (a rarity for them) but they've somehow dressed it up in reverbs and other treatments like a flowing raiment waving around it.

The second or third time around, the melody ends on a lower, mysterious chord, which begins to repeat and repeat: but each pull of the bow across the strings is so slow, and there's so much other sound emerging out of the basic sound of the strings, and subtle bell-like sounds peeking out here and there, that the repetition of this chord for six minutes isn't anything like boredom. It's like a bath, a lullabye, the touch of a featherbed. The music is not an action, it's a place: it's not what you see passing by out of the train window, it's the train you're in, rocking you to sleep.

Disc 1 of this album has spent most of its life in my CD changer since it came out in 2001. It wasn't music I listened to the first time and fell in love with, but it gradually became an integral part of me, and so often in the evenings here in the living room it's just the music that the time and place call forth. I've been comforted by it, I've cried to it, I've shivered with strangeness. It's mine.

I feel the need to review this disc simply due to the fact that it is so remarkable. I listen to a lot of music and probably bought between 100-150 albums last year. Out of those, I felt the need to review about 4 of them. Out of everything I bought last year I've listened to Tired Sounds the most (by far). If I had to pick best albums of 2001, this would be #1.
To warn anyone who doesn't know what this is- it's not pop music in the faintest sense. It is ambient/droning/minimalism music. And it is done beautifully.
I am writing this because when I find a work of art done so well and so perfectly, I can't keep it to myself. It's selfish. Everyone should hear this. For me, the first (two-part) piece, "Requiem for Dying Mothers" is the essence of beauty. And the second disc is even better than the first, which is an unbelievable acheivement.
This stands as an amazing work of art and to me it is the best ambient album I've heard. Tired Sounds is essential for anyone searching for the sublime.

I found this album by following Amazon.com's (very helpful) "Explore similar artists" link, with magnificent Mum and Boards of Canada as my starting points. Although I forcefully reject the assumption that Stars of the Lid be in any significant way "similar" to Mum or BoC, I must say that it certainly is true that those who enjoy music by the aforementioned groups are likely to appreciate the content of this recording as well (indeed, I am living proof of this). I think explaining why in my opinion Stars of the Lid differ from Mum and BoC alike, as well as why I was nonetheless taken in by their music, might help other customers to determine where this group stands in the musical scene.
However gentle, both albums by Mum also have a strong rhythmic structure, mostly based on "micro-beats." It is the latter that provides the crackly effect people often mention when describing their music. Through repetition and layering, these micro-beats create a suggestive and very hypnotic atmosphere (the kind of warmth one feels at wintertime in front of a - well... "crackling" - fire when the wind is gushing outdoors). The female components of Mum (two twin sisters) sing to the music in a sweet, gentle, almost childlike fashion, which of course adds to the charm enormously. All in all, repeated micro-beats (often similar to the mechanical chiming of a music box), romantic overlying melodies and graceful vocal renderings make listening to Mum's music a very soothing experience.
Boards of Canada, on the other hand, use very powerful, at times overtly aggressive rhythmic patterns, notwithstanding the presence of a constant underlying hum. In any case, whether electronic or instrumental, their beat line is often very "percussional," almost tribal/pagan, and as a result very liberating. That is why one could very well dance to a good number of their songs. Although, in general, conventional singing is not present in BoC's records, the human voice does play an important part in their work, providing a sense of human presence, however distorted and disturbing it may be.
Both Mum and BoC also rely extensively on the use of sampling, making it possible for them to be ascribed to the "concrete music" bunch. Furthermore, although one could easily put on their records for ambiance and listen to them from beginning to end without paying great attention to the way each individual song is structured, it is nonetheless true that, particularly in Mum's case, each song does have a specific structure and does differ from every and any other on the record.
Turning now to The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, the first thing that comes to my mind is that there is no strong, recognizable rhythmic structure here. I'm no music expert I'm afraid, so of course the following is to be taken as an amateur's general impression, but it seems to me like all tracks on this album are based upon "pedal points," a pedal point being "a musical tone held by the bass." Now, while pedal points usually serve the purpose of giving a musical composition a solid background for other parts to develop freely over, in this case all melodies involved are so delicate that one would be tempted to say that the pedal point itself is the main feature. In other words, the music on this record is, for the most part, a sequence of overlapping drones, with just very unobtrusive touches of the piano and other instruments. Needless to say, there is no singing involved in this record, as well as no significant use of unexpected sound samples. Furthermore, most tracks intersect, or at least meld, making it rather arduous for one to tell the difference between one track and the following. This leads to a very hypnotic atmosphere indeed, where hypnosis is no longer merely an effective image to describe the music, a metaphor, as in Mum's case, but a nearly physical effect the music itself exerts upon the listener. (In fact, based on personal experience, I have reason to believe that repeated, everlasting drones must stimulate the eardrum itself in such a way as to induce relaxation, or at least tiredness! Is it not so?)
The Tired Sounds reminds me not of something by Mum or Boards of Canada, but much more so of Terrry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air (and of other works by Minimalists in classical music). I have no knowledge of whether what I'm about to suggest is true or not, but the more I listen to The Tired Sounds the more I am inclined to believe that Stars of the Lid too, like Terry Riley before them, must have found inspiration in Oriental music, such as Hindu Ragas, or at least in Oriental philosophy. The Tired Sounds seem to me like an ideal background for meditation. The sense of calm, peacefulness, and utter mental "blankness" it brings about suits meditation perfectly. This record (a double CD, to be exact!) is an impressive work of art, and I'm sure its simplicity and pampering gentleness will help many to find approximately two hours of peace of mind. Not bad, I say.
(I suggest SILENCIO, performed by Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica, published by Nonesuch records, as a good addition to The Tired Sounds, for those who care to explore Arvo Part's works.)

This is a really mellow laid back soothing CD. It sounds more like the older ambient, sort of like what Glass and Eno had done in the 70's & 80's. It is nice to hear ambient with actual instruments and not just synthesizers. At first all the tracks sound very similar but after longer listening you can catch the subtle changes with in each track, and thats when you really start to enjoy this CD. Wait until about two minutes into track 2 on the first CD and you will know exactly what I mean, it is pure beauty. If you really want to hear some good ambient music and are also getting tired of the same electronic ambient sound that is common in most of todays groups, then this is what you want to get.

Ambient is a strange genre. Including lot's of stupid new-age albums and pretentious titles etc..BUT there is another side of the genre that for example SOTL represent! Tired Sounds is a massive double cd.Song arragements are extremely minimal. Guitar drones,deep bass signals,and beautifull string sections.When you listen to SOTL,it fills the whole room. The sound is really big but sensitive. There's no computers used on this album ( some found sounds and sound manipulations though) so it's really human. Also the song titles like " lonely people ( are getting lonelier )" or " Austin Texas Mental Hospital " aren't the usual soothing ambient song titles. This is quite melancholy album. If Requiem For Dying Mothers doesen't move you, you're not a human being. Turn off the lights,and take a nice seat with your headphones cause this is MOODY MUSIC !