Wake Up Awesome is the second volume of SSTUDIOS, a series of recordings that situates different experimental, avant-garde, and noise artists in new combinations of collaboration and spontaneous creativity. The album includes the trio of long-running Norwegian noise artist and Jazzkamer member
Lasse Marhaug, experimental cellist
Okkyung Lee, and New York-based sound collector
C. Spencer Yeh, joining forces to create 15 tracks of collective improvisation and composed experimental sounds. The results of a fruitful 2012 studio session between the players were later meticulously edited and reassembled into Wake Up Awesome, resulting in a concise patchwork of
Lee's organic but twisted cello squeals and webs of grizzly electronics, piecemeal percussion, and garbled vocalizations from
Yeh and
Marhaug. No piece outlives its welcome, with many tracks floating by at well under three minutes, and the album culminates in an abruptly ended stew of electronic drones, cut-up vocal samples, and churning hand drums on menacing closing track "Tonight We Sleep Like Empty Hard Drives." ~ Fred Thomas