Aarktica No Solace In Sleep

Genres: Ambient, Indie Rock
RIYL: Windy & Carl, Fennesz, Loscil, Stars of the Lid, Willam Basinski
Aarktica’s influential 2000 debut NO SOLACE IN SLEEP approaches glacial guitar ambient from a post-rock perspective, enveloping the listener into a new sonic world of haunting, aquatic darkness and shimmering tonal light.
Godsend: Excellent and gently lulling ambient/drone frequencies from Jon DeRosa, who combines guitars and effects into a distinctly unified sound ala SEEFEEL but minus the beats and vocals. The icy, melodic aural terrain has a soft, introspective feel that conjures images of slowly enveloping fields of snow and trees swaying in a cold wintry wind. Just gorgeous work that’s well recommended.
In the fall of 2000, Aarktica's debut NO SOLACE IN SLEEP enchanted listeners with quietly majestic, blissed-out tape hiss lullabies and slow-motion ambient compositions that unfolded as subtly as an ice floe drifting in the ocean. One listener described the headphone experience as “like being in the womb,” evoking feelings of both solitude and comfort. Another imagined it as “the sound of ice melting," and one early review declared that it "tapped directly into the heart of something older than speech" with the depth of melancholy and emotion it aroused. 
On the 25th anniversary of Aarktica's most popular work, the music continues to deeply connect with listeners. This faithfully remastered edition -- handled by ambient/electronic pioneer Taylor Deupree at 12k -- shines a subtle new light on this classic, reminding why the resonance of these compositions remains strong after all these years. 
When asked about the origin story of Aarktica, which begins with NO SOLACE IN SLEEP, founder and sole member Jon DeRosa explains, “In 1998, I went deaf in my right ear. That's how it started." As DeRosa struggled through self-consciousness about his impairment and disorienting auditory hallucinations, he found nightly solace in a warbly 4-track cassette recorder on which he began recording the songs that would become NSIS. “The intention was to translate this new version of sound I was experiencing into something I could make sense of,” confesses DeRosa.
The resulting NO SOLACE IN SLEEP envelops the listener into DeRosa’s new sonic world, one of haunting, aquatic darkness and shimmering tonal light. DeRosa pays homage to his influences by blending them like ripples overlapping in a pond. From the gentle, unfolding echoes and crushing distortion of the opener “Glacia,” to the haunting chorale-like arrangement of “The Ice (Feels Three Feet Thick Between Us),” to the ring-modulated arpeggios of “You Have Cured a Million Ghosts From Roaming in My Head,” we can hear nods to modern classical composers like La Monte Young and Ingram Marshall as well as indie artists like Windy & Carl and Flying Saucer Attack.
The enigmatic musical appeal of NO SOLACE IN SLEEP seems to arise from DeRosa's approaching ambient music from a post-punk perspective. One can hear melodic reflections of Durutti Column or Felt submerged in the oceanic waves of distortion and delay. All the sounds are coming from a guitar and pedals (and a voice, in one instance) with no synthesizers. And yet, DeRosa's classical background also provides a compositional framework for how these tracks unfold. It's this merging of seemingly disparate styles into something singular and unique that makes it special. 

25 years later, DeRosa’s guitar work still sounds innovative, generating tones that sound like shifting icebergs and subzero winds across a desolate tundra. And then all at once conjuring something so gentle, crystalline and comforting as a warm hearth in the midst of an ice storm. It’s a deeply affecting listening experience that continues to resonate after all these years.
+ “You Have Cured a Million Ghosts From Roaming In My Head” was featured on the soundtrack for the acclaimed documentary THE CRASH REEL by director Lucy Walker. The soundtrack also featured artists Chemical Brothers, Spiritualized, Tycho, Moby and The Chemical Brothers among others.
+ NO SOLACE IN SLEEP was remastered by ambient/electronic pioneer Taylor Deupree at 12k
+ Aarktica's new full-length album ECSTATIC LIGHTSONGS will be released in fall 2025
Press Clips:
Jason Morehead, Opus: Consider the vastness of Aarktica’s sounds which conjure up everything from distant arctic wildernesses and brilliant auroras to the deepest ocean depths, and straight on out to the interstellar voids. 
Mass Transfer: Think of this [album] as the aural score for the aurora borealis, each note a shimmery display of color; the tones as waves of light...Simply captivating.
The Broken Face: Imagine a greatest hits mix tape consisting of the best of Windy & Carl, Stars of the Lid, Labradford and early Azusa Plane and you're on the right track. Whispering waves of sonic molasses drip out of your speakers as De Rosa replicates the ambience of an iceberg floating through the midnight Atlantic: dark, cold and immense.
Blake Butler, All Music Guide: Over an hour of complete droning solitude, perhaps like what the auditory sense would pick up in the womb... Immaculate for executing as background or sleep-inducing, drifting off into nothing.
Bleeding Minds
: A captivating musical experience that is a story without words, yet completely within the realm of human understanding...NO SOLACE IN SLEEP managed to generate a feeling of serenity inside of me that no other performer ever has. 
Gothic Preservation Society: There's an unspeakable tenderness to this ponderously gentle music, like the sea who lets the sailor live just because it can. Softly ringing, echoing rhythms seem almost buried under the shifting ultramarine layers until you realize that the full ambience is no more than the dance of the individual themes. "Rapture of the deep," the divers call it. Now I can say I've been there.