If there's two things Sleep practically forces you to do while listening to their music, it's nod your head and get incredibly high. And what better way to show everyone your love for both of those things than with Sleep's new Christmas sweater? Complete with pot leaves everywhere and little bongs adorning the bottom fringe, it's the perfect way to let everyone know you've dropped out of life with bong in hand for the remainder of December. Get it here.
While it's not Sleep, the band's frontman Al Cisneros recently revealed his project Om is mixing their first new album since Advaitic Songs in 2012. In a chat with Bass Player about his five-string Rickenbacker basses, Cisneros reveals the news while also extolling the virtues of having a low B string.
"I love their five-strings, and since about 2010, I've been using them more and more. You can only tune down a four-string so far, and I don't believe that those drop-tuning devices really do anything. I think they're just a way to sell more strings. Also, if you want to keep the tonality of the instrument, as well as the action that you're used to playing on the fifth string, you need a proper five-string bass."
"I only use a five for a few songs here and there: On the new Om album, which we're about to start mixing, it's on a couple of longer pieces. I have one from the Nineties that they made on the first run, and the 4003S5 that they introduced with the wider fretboard. I think I prefer the more recent model."
