Slow Six “Tomorrow Becomes You” (Western Vinyl, 2010)

Morning becomes electric, and acoustic

A lot of instrumental music takes a well worn short cut to catharsis, ever since Slint they have operated that quiet/loud switch without too much thought, it is easy to know when to be contemplative and when to stomp down hard on the effects pedals. There is another route through this and the Slow Six take the experimental laptop (Christopher Tignor from the band writes the software that transforms sources like talk radio – ‘Cloud cover Pt 2’ – or the other players instruments to create electronicl soundscapes) and fuse it with Rachels style neo-classical chamber music to create and kind of post-rock/serialist/minimalist hybrid.

It results in a shifting, twisting elegant music that is a little too insistent to be described as ambient, not dramatic enough to be epic ambient (a la GYBE) and a little too quiet to be lumped in with the post-rock herd. The closest they get is the style perpetrated by the likes of Explosions in the Sky, though mostly gentler is the opening ‘The Night You Left New York’ which takes nine minutes to transform from playful plucks and ambient drones – along the way taking in meditative passages of long drawn out violin chords – dropping in a surprisingly familiar rhythm track as violins cascade in a waterfall of string and bows, the songs builds gradually like a good novel piling on the details until it rushes to a 39 Steps style denouement with the guitars joining the violins tumbling over Niagara Falls.

Tignor’s software and the skill of the other players turns ‘Because Together We Resonate’ into an elegiac and subtly moving piece as it weaves together all the elements into a musical wicker basket containing the heart of Brian Eno. Intriguingly ‘These Rivers Between Us’ sounds like Tortoise playing along with a string quartet, they set rubbery rhythms off in different directions then add some repeating and evolving minimalist patterns and let the whole thing simmer, hit the drums, turn up the guitar and it almost spills out of the cup, fear not as plucked strings and chattering percussion cool things down before mutant snatches of electronica nibble away to be soothed by twinklings of Rhodes piano and chirpy strings that guide it towards a feisty conclusion.

The Slow Six do use recognizable tropes, there’s a lot of standard post/avant rock moves here and they do play around with form enough so at times it does sound fresh. Occasionally it does start to lull but then a stray element will appear in the headphones and result in instant re-engagement. It is a very good record of it's type, and is grand enough to have a wider impact.

Date review added:  Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Reviewer:  David Cowling
Reviewers Rating:
Related web link:  Slow clicks for the website