What lies deep within the sound source is of utmost interest to the individuals of Slowcream. The group works with a clump of classical instruments, but rather than impose a preconceived structure on them to fulfill an idea, they use electronic processing to make instantly and astonishingly audible the finer details of the instruments which were hitherto barely present.
When this process causes the classical sounds to jar rather than fuse, the compositions attain to a level of biting abstractness such that, to a point, they are dissociated from the weight of the past and find another sort of omnipresence, strange, irresolute, vaguely numinous. Rich overtones generally spring from moments of quiet insistence, ambient evocations of the stark majesty of the North, out of which swell sensual electronic sounds and mellow grooves, themselves counter-pointed by fluid piano semi-quavers, violin and cello passages of sedate pacing, and evanescent shivers that shift the digital space. These amount to ambitious arrangements that, despite their juggernaut rhythms and jerky delivery, which keeps them hovering on the horizon for a good long while, fostering a fragile tension, often reach pleasing, if rather easy, melodic resolutions.
On top of this, though, particles do fuse on no seldom occasion. A piece such as “Shadow Meat” may be one of the album’s toughest tunes, but its structure is so extended, it ends up confused, overwrought, and on the brink of hysteria. Furthermore, in the difficulty had over connecting all of the dots so that the works continue to gather steam its some sixty-three minutes, the group often melt the contours of the sounds down to a distillation of their basic properties. Arranging skils and harmonic chops are in evidence in certain places throughout the recording, but at this present point, especially given the familiar mixture of theatricality, symphonic structure, and radical processing, there is not much here to attract the devoted listener of experimental electronica and all its myriad forms.
Max Schaefer
