Team Sleep - Appolonia (2003)

Team Sleep started when Chino Moreno and his friend Todd Wilkinson bought a cassette tape Portastudio-type four-track recorder in 1994, and the two of them jammed and recorded the odd song while Moreno's main band The Deftones recorded and released their first two albums. DJ Crook, a long-time friend and roommate of Deftones turntablist/keyboardist Frank Delgado, added beats and turntables to 'Teenager', a song featuring glitch and trip hop influences, and although it was originally intended as a Team Sleep song, it eventually appeared on The Deftones' third album 'White Pony' in 2000. Team Sleep performed a number of live shows on the West Coast of the United States in late 2001 and early 2002, with Moreno, Wilkinson, DJ Crook, Verrett (of Tinfed), Zach Hill, Dan Elkan, Sonny Mayugba, and Joel Tidwell handling instrumentation. A full album's worth of material was finished in 2002–03, with singers Mike Patton of Faith No More and Melissa Auf der Maur of Hole being involved in the recording sessions, although their contributions were not included on the final album, being replaced by vocalists Rob Crow and Mary Timony, singing alongside Moreno. The debut album was supposed to be released in 2003 but was scrapped due to the premature leakage of demos onto the internet, following which the band split for a brief period, before getting back together and recording new material for the album. The new record was scheduled for release in November 2004, but Maverick Records were reportedly so impressed by it that they postponed the release until mid-2005 to allow for promotion. 'Team Sleep' was finally released on 10 May 2005, to mostly positive reviews, although only five of the original recordings appeared on it, with three of those being heavily re-recorded. Notably absent from the completed debut album were 'Mercedes', 'Appolonia', 'Iceache', 'Death By Plane', 'Solid Gold', 'Acoustic One' and 'Kool-Aid Party' (with vocals by Mike Patton), while a demo of 'Cambodia' was revamped and appeared on the album as 'Ever (Foreign Flag)', and 'Natalie Portman' was revised into 'Live From The Stage'. Following the album's release, the band toured and began posting various demos on their MySpace page, and by adding a few of those to the recordings which were omitted from that first official release, we can hear what could have been the band's real debut album, released some time in 2003. With their 2005 record just now receiving a deluxe re-issue, it's the perfect time to give their earlier efforts a try.  

Track listing

01 Natalie Portman

02 Solid Gold 
03 Boulevard Nights 

04 Cambodia
05 King Diamond 
06 Death By Plane 
07 Appolonia 
08 Iceache 
09 Mercedes 
10 Acoustic One 
11 Interlude 
12 Kool-Aid Party