Slow Six - Nor'easter
[New Albion]

New York experimentalists Slow Six are a community of musicians directed by band leader Christopher Tignor. With a sound that hovers intriguingly between modern classical and experimental electronic work, “Nor’easter’s” six daunting movements brood with immersive tension.

Using his self-developed Echoustic software, Tignor manipulates guitarist Stephen Greisgraber’s elliptical finger-picking on “Echolalic Transitions”. Recording the notes his bandmate plays, Tignor’s software allows him to mimic these sounds, while projecting them back in different patterns and formations. It results in an intimately warm and symmetrical rhythm, played entirely through guitar and machine, much like the way Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood continuously reformats and controls Thom Yorke’s vocals during a live rendition of “Everything in Its Right Place”.

With well over an hour’s worth of music, “Nor’easter” is not the sort of album where you can be selective. This one requires your undivided attention form start to finish. If given, the listener will be undoubtedly rewarded with expert musicianship and compositions that journey straight from the heart. Indeed, there is such a prevalent sense of unity and understanding between band members, that it would seem Slow Six were born with their instruments attached.

The thoroughly engaging “The Pulse of This Skyline with Lightning like Nerves” moves in a theatrical manner, with agitated string arrangement weaving between the song’s contours of pallid guitar rhythms. Creating a lulling, nocturnal ambiance, perhaps “The Pulse...” would be a suitable accompaniment for Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven. Greisgraber’s guitar, though, takes centre stage after ten intriguing minutes, creating an intricate, onomatopoeic tempo that braids with the prominent string progression.

You would imagine, had a composer such as Wagner been born this century, he would be experimenting with classical structures much like the reveries found on “Nor’easter”. Refreshingly, Slow Six are a rare breed, a band not motivated by profit or critical acclaim. This is a band that thrives in the live arena, where they can bring their heartfelt, evolving sound to the masses.

Track Listing:

1. The Pulse of This Skyline With Lightning Like Nerves
2. Contemplation and Dissolution of an Idea for Two Pairs
3. Echolalic Transitions
4. Hold Fast That Fragile Symmetry
5. Distant Light, Part 1: Chromatic Clouds Surround
6. Distant Light, Part 2: Now New Colors Fall Like Rain