Denton music just got a little less adorable on paper — Mom has outgrown its name, opting to go by Sleep Whale henceforth, the Dallas Observer reports.
The slight cut in cuteness is due mostly to mixed-up fans of the Icelandic band mum. Cellist Joel North told the DO people actually showed up to Mom's gig at the Granada Wednesday night thinking mum, and not Mom, was opening for shoegazers This Will Destroy You.
Plus, North said, he and Bruce Blay's blippy electro-picking duo is expanding into a foursome, with Spencer Stephenson of Weatherford and North's little brother Paul (aww) joining up. The new name is lifted from the title of the band's song "Sleep Whale", a favorite of North's that he claimed brought him from California back to Denton to collaborate with Blay, who wrote the song. Meaningful enough.
But the video for "Sleep Whale," posted on the band's as-yet-unaltered myspace page, is peppered with images of quilts, which could preserve the likely nod to North's quilter mom that was the band's original name. A conversation chronicled by the DO last year, to clarify:
"I like to visualize [the music] as a quilt," Blay says, flashing a knowing smile North's way.
"My mom's a quilter," North offers with a shrug.
"We [Blay, North and their fellow Denton roommates] all have quilts from Joel's mom," Blay quickly counters. "And it's like, I dunno, the coolest art form ever. It keeps you warm."
"It's different pieces that come together as a whole, which is kind of what making an album is like," North adds. "I would see my mom going through fabric stores, trying to find the perfect little piece to fit in certain squares, and that's the same sort of thing we have with our music."
*Melting.*
Whether Mom is telling the whale to sleep, or describing a sort of whale that sleeps or a whale that appears in one's sleep, the first name is still cooler.
The whole thing reminds us of when Panda started playing the atrium at the Dallas Museum of Art and traded up for more syllables, changing its name to Oceanographer. We hope Sleep Whale doesn't move to Brooklyn and then break up like those guys, who just recently got back together with a revised lineup.
