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 Best known as owner of the Elevator Bath label, Seattle-based Colin Andrew Sheffield has produced a number of releases exploring microtonal drone. A self-styled sound re-interpreter, he uses methods akin to the plunderphonic, focusing on re-contextualization of selected slivers sliced from commercially available recordings which are contracted, expanded, layered and/or otherwise pulled and prodded with soundtools till they offer up something other in the form of soundscapes of eerie haunted beauty. Slowly is a document of time-shifted tidal waves breaking on nocturnal shores, gradually shifting and unfolding, a work of nuance and restraint, suspended between ambient and audio-collage, leaning toward the former.
Sheffield's sounds collude and collide in four poignant, yet effervescent tracts of tonal ambiguity and uncertain provenance. Synths? Guitars? Mutated field recordings? All of the above and more, probably. Not notably concrète, but certainly acousmatic, the form of the original music rendered errant, and, in a sense, irrelevant, by Sheffield's obliterative and revelatory techniques. In the first part a relatively gentle tenor prevails, when set against the louder and chillier final section. Using tiny, even microscopic sounds as source material, he arranges glassine tones into resplendent cathedrals of sound. A cloud-like swirl courses through these long-form pieces, by turns glowering and glimmering, shimmering and pulsating. The near 20-minute "Untitled 1" registers an amorphous haze of sonic rippling while "Untitled 4" closes with swaying sawtooth arpeggios, verging on out and out noise though quickly pulling back before retreating to the meditative edge of the abyss the album teeters on.
Review by Alan Lockett
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