Like Slow Draw's last album, this one is not for everyone. The songs herein were culled from various improvised recordings from 2021 and 2022. Maybe you’ve heard them, or more specifically, seen bits and pieces of them. These songs appear differently without the visuals of his studio. Editing compositions results in a teetering of sound and places you on the precipice of darkness while staring at places you'd rather be. Negativland meets Sunn O)) meets Fripp & Eno is his best description.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Kamil) Hey Slow Draw, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?
Hey Kamil, thanks for chatting with me! I can't pinpoint any specific thing, but the thing that comes to mind is MTV. I grew up in the 80s, and I remember spending a lot of time watching music videos. I would spend hours taking it in, and then eventually wanting to do my own music.
How do you balance your time in the studio with other commitments such as a part-time job, family, admin?
It is a balancing act, for sure. Music is what I love to do, so I feel like I have two jobs. I make it work, it just takes a bit of planning and coordination with the other parts of my life. I think the main take away would be that I make sure I use any "spare" time I have to focus on creating or practicing.
Your latest release is 'dark shadows in happy places'. Can you tell us more about the making of it and if there were any unusual things happening during the process?
For this album, I recorded it in a slightly different manner. Sometime in 2021 I just started recording my "practice" sessions, which is just me improvising for anywhere from 5 minutes up to an hour. The session lasted as long as it felt it needed to. So now I have a ton of material saved up. For this album, I went through about 10 or so sessions and pulled out my favorite parts. So what you hear is unedited other than mastering the tracks to get them evenly set to one another. Going back and listening to these to pick out the parts was very enjoyable since it was kind of a surprise to me since these are not true written songs.
Where did you get the inspiration for this album?
Going back and listening to these sessions was very enjoyable as I mentioned. What I was able to pull from those fortunately had a musical consistency which lead to what I would call the theme of the album. There are always those nice or pretty things, but there is also a shadow or "dark" side to everything.
How long did you work on the 'dark shadows in happy places'? Was it an easy process for you?
My process for this music is simple, or at least I try to keep it that way. I'm not big on going over and over on parts, and I'm not afraid to leave "mistakes" on tracks. Even when performing, if I hit a note that gives me a little cringe, I'll give a slight pause and let that moment happen and work itself into what is going on. The recordings happened over about 6 months or so, and I spent about a month going through the sessions, carving out what I liked, and editing them.
How do you know when a work is finished?
When I hit save on my computer! No, but really for me it is a matter of feel for general songwriting. For albums like this where things are improvised, it is a matter of finding where the moment in the performance starts and stops. And that can be hard if the moment stops abruptly or seems to go on endlessly.
Can you write what was your best performance in your career? How do you remember it?
That's a tough question! I'm always nervous when performing, and my thoughts during always focus on "where am I going next?". My best performances are probably among the ones that are just me in my studio alone, and some of those are captured on "dark shadows in happy place".
How do you find yourself in the music business? When you started out in music, did you know it would be like this?
I've always seen it as a hard business to get in, and for the most part it still is. I wish it was my full time job, and so I didn't put my all into it when I was younger. That's one thing I wish I would have done when I was much younger was focus on music as a career and not fallen into the trope that "you won't make any money doing this" that was the attitude people had way back. I think if you focus on something and put yourself into, it can happen. It is too hard to do at this point in my life, but I spend as much time as I can doing it.
Who is your favourite musician?
My overall favorite musician would have to be Frank Zappa. His music spans genres and his output was always excellent. He also has a level of intellect in his music that so accessible to anyone. Not sure if that makes sense.
What are your plans for the future?
I'm currently going through more of the sessions I've recorded to start work on the next album. I may slow down a little while going through these to see if I can hone down more on the track choices. I'm also planning a more structured album that will be extremely different from "dark shadows in happy places". It will be a collection of short songs that I'm currently calling "Songs for the Internet". We'll see how that pans out. I'm planning to play some shows this year as well, and maybe even travel around the state of Texas. We'll see.
Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me, this was very enjoyable!