Former Rip Rig and Panic pianist Mark Springer returns with Sleep of Reason, a sprawling, ambitious double-album that merges contemporary classical composition with avant-garde pop sensibility—and features a stunning collaboration with Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant. Inspired by Francisco Goya’s darkly prophetic etchings, the album is a three-part meditation on 21st-century chaos, blending solo piano, string quartet, and voice-led quintet into a work that’s as politically sharp as it is sonically sublime.
The album’s opening track, “Phantoms and Monsters” (released March 14), sets the tone—a brooding piano piece that evokes the uneasy tension of Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, with Springer’s playing oscillating between fragile introspection and dissonant fury. But the true revelation comes in the quintet section, where Tennant’s icy, poetic vocals slice through the Sacconi Quartet’s lush strings, delivering lyrics that skewer social media narcissism, political division, and the grand egos of our time. It’s pop meets post-minimalism—a collision of Tennant’s wry detachment and Springer’s orchestral grandeur.
The string quartet movements are no less gripping, weaving Bartók-like tension with moments of aching beauty, mirroring Goya’s interplay of horror and humanity. Springer’s compositional genius lies in his ability to balance spontaneity and precision—these pieces fight, soar, and collapse with the unpredictability of live thought, yet every note feels inevitable.
Sleep of Reason is a rare beast: a work of high-art ambition that pulses with visceral urgency. Springer and Tennant don’t just soundtrack modern monsters—they dissect them with scalpels of sound.
