The easiest way to describe any artist
is to make some connection to sounds that has come before. Most of
the time a reviewer is trying to connect with an audience by naming
possible influences or creating a new sub-genre. Doing this with the
music of Slow Six, a quintet led by Christopher Tignor, would
diminish the music written and performed on “Tomorrow Becomes You.”
There is more to the music that cannot be described by dropping the
names of leading modern classical composers like Steve Reich or
Philip Glass, Kraut-rock bands such as Can or NEU!, equating them
with Prog-rock outfits such as King Crimson, or lumping them into the
category of classical crossover. The music that emanates from the
speakers on the latest album is so much more. It is not about what
has come before, but what is happening in the present. The music that
lifts out of the grooves on “Tomorrow Becomes You” is the
redefinition of classical music. Not only rewriting the perceived
notion of classical music, but reinventing the sound of the chamber
quintet.
This lineup on “Tomorrow Becomes You”
includes composer, mastermind, violinist, and producer Christopher
Tignor; drummer Theo Metz pounding out rhythms that are common place
in Led Zeppelin albums than classical, second violinist Ben Lively,
Rob Collins on Fender Rhodes, and finally guitarist Stephen
Griesgraber. These musicians make the music come alive and breath an
atmosphere that is unique unto itself. Compositions structured in a
manner that gives the listener room to experience human emotion. An
ebb and flow that occurs more in the form of classical suites than
what happens in the realm of rock music. Much like any great music it
exists outside the realms of any particular genre. Sampling the best
and giving it to the listener in a package that they can comprehend.
This is what makes the music on
“Tomorrow Becomes You” so appealing. It is recognizable to an ear
that cannot tell the difference between Beethoven's “String Quartet
No. 14 in C# minor” or Mozart's “String Quartet No. 19 in C
Major.” Slow Six utilizes the voices commonly associated with a
“classic” rock band setting (drums, electric guitar, and electric
keyboard;) albeit without the addition a traditional bassist (bowed,
plucked, or electric.) The compositions are written and executed so
that the mind recognizes them as a rock song rather than a classical
piece. This give the heart the ability to understand the emotional
content with greater ease.
The songs take on the mood that can
only be reflected as the emotions we feel. There are no words to
distract from the sounds that emanate from each instrument. This is
so the sound and composition can connect on a deeper level. The music
is the story of love and love lost. Reflected in the titles and
pronounced to understand the human condition. There is mourning and
anger that is expressed in the writing and playing of each of these
songs. It is like opening a box to who we are and why we feel the way
we do. The best example are the two songs that bookend the album,
“The Night You Left New York” and “These Rivers Between Us.”
Each song builds to a crescendo and you feel the emotions of a break
up, which is initiated in “The Night You Left New York.” Ending
in a sense of hope that everything will be ok and life goes on by the
time “These Rivers Between Us” ends the album.
This is where Slow Six finds success.
Not playing by the rules, but by breaking them. Creating music that
is as much atmosphere as it is groove, melody and substance. It is
the type of music that you can easily get lost inside of. From the
the sound of the dueling violins creating melodic point and
counterpoint, the thundering of drums, to guitars understated just
enough that they blend perfectly with the complex chords hammered out
on the Fender Rhodes. Slow Six has taken this line up of instruments
and moved it past the inflated ego's of what could come off as a fat
and bloated third generation Prog-rock sound and achieved what bands
like Yes were trying to do in the 70's. This time successfully and
without Rick Wakeman's Liberace inspired capes.
