David Charles Boe (who goes by the musical moniker Sleep Diet) is one of the more prolific visionary artists coming out of West Coast.  Growing up in the ‘90s in the Pacific Northwest city of Portland, Boe found the post-grunge pride scene empowering and heavily influential.

The multidisciplinary artist and co-founder of the Los Angeles DIY arts collective Non Plus Ultra today shares “Parlor,” the latest single from his upcoming EP Void Everywhere, due out November 19th. The heart-thumping sound that starts the track flourishes ever so gracefully into a beautiful collage of guitars and drums, along with grunge-like vocals.  

Boe said of the single: “Everyone’s so atomized and lonely now. We were born into a world that’s increasingly transactional. From our isolation we objectify each other; projecting our fantasies onto strangers while feeling like we, ourselves, will never be truly understood. To keep food on the table we sell our humanity off piecemeal. It’s the last resource we each have left to sell. Our time, attention, humor, love, etc. become commodities and advertisements for the same forces that oppress us. It can feel like the only way out is the end of the world. That’s what I was thinking about when I wrote this song. Full EP out later this month.”

Though it was recorded in 2019, Sleep Diet’s upcoming EP Void Everywhere addresses themes eerily relevant to the collective consciousness of the world concerning the COVID-19 pandemic – weariness, repetition, alienation, resignation, and mortality. Through the EP’s three tracks, Sleep Diet employs the traditional songwriting techniques of ’90s slowcore and shoegaze songwriters he’s been inspired by while, in his trademark fashion, irreverently crafting a unique sonic and visual aesthetic. 

“Recording ‘Void Everywhere’ was a slow process and for a while, I was afraid it would age poorly,” says Boe. “Weirdly, all the themes running through it feel more potent after the last couple of years: how finite our time is and how limited our experience is. Just the burden and the beauty of being aware.”

Void Everywhere will be Sleep Diet’s first collection of original music to be released in over a decade. Last month, Boe shared “Holding Pattern,” the first single from the upcoming EP. Earlier this year Sleep Diet gave a sneak peek at Sleep Diet’s expanding universe via his single “Change Candidate” along with the visuals directed by Shannon Pollak in collaboration with Highland Park TV

Boe also makes music under the moniker CMFRTR. “I think of Sleep Diet and CMFRTR as complementary art practices with very different goals. Sleep Diet is a pop project – structural, melodic, conceptual, dramatic. CMFRTR is an ambient/noise project that is primarily improvised. Sleep Diet moves forward, CMFRTR sits still.”  the first  CMFRTR album, Skin Fits, was released in 2020 as part of the Mutation Records Energy Hum: Volume 1 collection.

When asked what inspired him to make music, David Charles Boe replies with absolutely no sarcasm – “I’ve been making music since I was thirteen. Songwriting and playing music are forms of prayer for me. It’s how I process being alive… Plus, I want people to marvel at my genius and develop parasocial relationships with me based on how they think I would be if we hung out.”