Almost an album of lullabies, Turned Over To Dreams was recorded after Kentucky writer Moore discovered that close friends of his had used one of his previous albums to lull their child to sleep. A singer in the vein of Sufjan Stevens Moore certainly has a crepuscular quality to his voice, a breathy whisper of sorts floating gently over muted song arrangements.
He opens the album with the title song, a tender invitation to surrender to sleep that has a music box quality to it along with some dreamlike strings. It’s the sort of song that might once have graced a Disney cartoon back in the days (and indeed, there’s some Disney later on). Consider the Worlds is more ethereal and winsome before Moore turns in three short instrumentals including an arrangement of Brahms’ lullaby which are intricate yet delicately crafted.
You Are Home is like a restless shiver in the midst of a deep sleep, its pace just a step up from the instrumental medley but an aching guitar solo midway through is a soporific balm. Thereafter Moore again wafts the listener with halting and fragile songs with The Sherman Brothers’ Stay Awake (from Mary Poppins) and Fred Rogers’ It’s Such A Good Feeling (seems he was a Val Doonican type American TV star) among them. Throughout the album the guitars, strings and soft blown wind instruments gel into a warm snuggled up feeling that might lull children to sleep but there’s no doubt that it’s a calming listen for adults without ever becoming an ambient background sound.
https://soundcloud.com/danielmartinmoore/stay-awake
Summary
A dream like evocation of slumberland
