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Kurt Leege

Raised a classical pianist, Kurt Leege learned to read music at the same time he learned to read. By the time he was in high school he developed a desire to write music, but found himself trapped in his classical training. As a means to express the music in his head, he taught himself to play guitar and he's been doing that ever since.

At Swarthmore College, he studied jazz with John Alston and later played in his jazz ensemble, among other more pop music projects. During this time he also developed an affinity for skronk guitar from listening to the likes of Sonic Youth, MBV and Robert Quine. The resulting blend of jazz and experimental noise idioms would come to dominate his playing style for over a decade after.

Upon moving to New York in 1994, Kurt joined an indie-rock outfit called Curdlefur, which released an ep and the first single by Deep Elm Records. With the dissolution of that band, Kurt, lead singer Christopher Jacobson and drummer John Devore founded Noxes Pond in 1996. This noise/funk trio was a mainstay of the LES rock scene for 2 years, with a standing date at Arlene Grocery. They released three albums before Jacobson departed for the west coast and Devore founded Devore Fidelity. Kurt then joined the infamous downtown ambient jazz outfit M'lumbo for two albums and the score of a feature length film.

Itching to get back to rock, in November of 1999 Kurt joined the goth rock outfit Ninth House. With his burgeoning interest in engineering, he produced and engineered 'Swim in the Silence' for the band before departing over creative differences. During this period Kurt also started doing a significant amount of scoring work for off-Broadway theater and television, with credits including the hit show 'Angel' and a one man show by Steven Berkoff.

In 2001, a brief revival of Noxes Pond saw Kurt introduced to what would become his longest working partnership with singer Sarah Mucho, which continues to this day. In 2003, Kurt and Sarah brought back Ninth House drummer Paul Pouthier and bassist Sanford Arisumi to found the prog outfit System Noise. At the same time, Kurt opened the South Williamsburg recording studio Lucid Production and spent 6 years running a commercial studio while also releasing two albums with System Noise.

In 2009, after several years of devouring bluegrass and other roots music, Kurt's writing style began to shift away from prog and hard rock. He began a side project with Sarah Mucho to showcase that new material. After several successful gigs, that project became The Sometime Boys, with the additions of bassist Pete O'Connell and drummer Jay Cowit. At the same time Cowit's jam band Wounded Buffalo Theory was seeking a new guitarist. Kurt also joined that project and has remained in both to the present day, releasing numerous albums and playing hundreds of shows around the east coast.

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"Just because the songs themselves might make you think of nursery rhymes, though, I encourage you to keep an open mind: there are moments throughout the album that, for whatever reason, remind me of Hebrew prayers (surely a coincidental octave here or there.) While I'm not much for the religion itself, both the prayers and these moments in the music produce both a sense of fundamental calm and awe for creation. I absolutely plan to use the album as the background to my daily meditation practice. If you, too, are in need of something to calm you (and you know you need one), Sleepytime Guitar will ease your weary heart — and your collicky infant."