Lisa Busby and John Harries are the hands behind Sleeps In Oysters, there isn’t much information or back story and what little there is seems to be intentionally obscured and imbued with fantasy. They are similar to Wildbirds And Peacedrums, ideas about space in songs, about textures and the non-typical way instruments might be used, seem to surface in both band's work. Slipping and shifting percussion sprays throughout these songs, chopped and screwed, jamming and whirring away, a definite electronic sound and flavour that permeates. In and around this are acoustic songs that sometimes deal out sweet, hopeful sentiments, or otherwise dark and cloying ones, in the characters of animals and insects, and a literary bent. ‘Moth Wings For Lisa’ has a rising quality, glockenspiel repeating a simple melody, accordion slowly striding along, words like "Would you ride in and patch me up/I know I’ve asked a lot already/But I’ll make it up to you I swear" sung sweetly by female vocals, and the crackling, rubbery clicks of percussion. Similarly, ‘No Time Like The Spiders Part 2’ has those beautiful vocals from Busby (with Harries backing), but on this track it’s a sea of poignancy among a clamouring and clattering of the percussion, keyboard and various effects, which gets close to Four Tet circa Everything Ecstatic. There are instances of instruments being inverted, or altered, which is pleasing to hear because it lifts the album out of potentially prosaic territory. So, ‘My Heart A Hive For Bees’ has a backwards harmonica (or something of the sort), and pitch-shifted vocals, ‘No Time Like The Spiders, Part 1: Where Do You Go To My Lovely?’ uses a plucked violin and samples seemingly taken from a children’s audiobook or TV show, a man’s voice reciting poetic lines "grasshopper”¦dancing gnat”¦harmless worms".A brilliant finish to the album can be found in ‘Moth Wings For John’, a field recording of insect sounds winds through the track, and amazingly they seem to turn into the various instruments that make up the song, crickets turn into sharp percussion and a bee turns into a ghostly melody. The line between instrument and field recording remains wonderfully blurred throughout the song, cello or bee? Cricket or drum processor? The lyrics and melody recall this track’s sister from the start of the album, in a sleepier, but no less affecting, mood.*Deep breath* We Kept The Memories Locked Away Like The Beetles Of Our Childhood, or How To Appreciate Someone Who's Always Around is an interesting album, in the way it deals with instruments and the way it weaves together narrative, both musically and lyrically. Blackbirds, spiders and bees appear in a patched-together inscrutable twisted fairy tale, needless to say it creates it’s own world. 70%Sleeps In Oysters on MySpace