Aug 06 2004
Slowsix: Private Times in Public Places
Slowsix + Private Times in Public Places
OTO Rating: 8/10
Coherence and fluid motion throughout the space of an album are qualities often achieved through theme and what better way to hold down a theme than linking all of your lyrics together as a signifier? Private Times in Public Places should be a concept album telling stories about the peaks and valleys of living your life amongst a billion other people all sharing your planet and vying for their own space and time. To a degree, it is, but the stories are told through high notes on a melodramatic violin whose crescent moon is nothing more than rhodes, electric guitar, and the occasional cello. Oh, throw a computer in their as an instrument and you have, in all its totality, a great piece of music bound in what its creators call, “a tenacious patience.”
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Track listing:
01 This is Your Last Chance (Before I Sleep) 02 Evening Without Atonement 0. The Lines We Walked When We Walked Once Together |
The three track longplayer from Slowsix spins down like a day in the life of…you, and it does so in such fashion that the exact day is not only blatantly specific, but ever changing depending where your head is at each particular time you listen to it. There is something about the telling drama that strings, violin in particular, pull out of certain pieces of music that act as catalyst for emotional attachment transporting the mind away from paying attention and closer to envisioning the subconscious more quickly or effectively than most other instruments can, in this guy’s opinion. {See: Hilary Hahn, The Village}. Set usually over a great bit of atmosphere by the rest of the troupe, Maxim Moston’s violin surges through the first track, “This is Your Last Chance (Before I Sleep)” pushing the crisp top layer of music through the majority of it’s twenty four minute existence. Note: These are pieces, arrangements rather than ‘tunes’ or songs. When Moston’s violin does drop out of the aforementioned track, the first dose of the computer-as-instrument sees the light of day. Previously hiding underneath the prominent elements of the piece, everything gives way to a slightly altered rhodes sound aided ever so slightly by a slight bubbly ticking noise: enter the computer as an instrument.
The liner notes decree: “The role of the computer is to provide a software instrument the player uses to capture, alter, and otherwise re-contextualize the sound of his fellow performers.” Admittedly, I was skeptical. But hearing how the computer really does become and instrument is something pretty amazing and certainly worth praise. Sampling and retooling a band member’s sound in the context of the number is a great idea and opens up a door of possibility within music that I would love to see people pass through on a regular basis. Amidst all of the great playing elements on this record, both subtle and intense, there is the use of the computer that makes the entire thing that much more interesting. I think the record is a few steps away from showing us a “computer solo” where someone is shredding via CAPS LOCK and the F1 key, but I’m starting to think my Gateway can play a mean rhythm guitar if pushed in the right direction.
Perhaps what I like best about this music is its consistency in demanding attention from its listener on and off from the first second to the last. At times it can act as pure background, but when the arrangement calls for attention there is no denying that it must be given. The entire sound of “Evening Without Atonement” lays back for the first few minutes before the rhodes and violin step up to the podium and call you home from halfway down the block. Wherever your mind has wondered, the music pulls you right back to itself and you lock in on it once again. In the right context, this music can be used at a dangerously effective level. It has pushed my little basement office to the brink, I can only imagine what it could to a piece or pieces of visual art.
All told, Slowsix has an uncanny amount of taste, timing, and imagination on Private Times. The record is slow where it should be slow and upfront and loud where the tale calls for it. Great music to daydream to, the disc is a definite must for those who don’t know exactly where they stand in the world of instrumental albums. A delight and wonder to marvel in all at the same time, this record is the perfect mix of classic instrument alongside a seldom seen concept to the world of modern music: Daring exploration.
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