Slowcore as a genre first appeared in the American music press in the late eighties and early nineties, with the advent of indie rock as the Americans understood it. Since then, however, it has been used to cover a multitude of sins. At first, bands such as Galaxie 500, Low and Codeine were classified as slowcore upon their entrance into the American ‘indie’ music scene: journalistic shorthand for intense, moody, and most importantly, depressing.
Described as such, slowcore bands seem like little more than the American counterpart of late eighties post-punk outfits, albeit without the bad hair and eyeliner. Indeed, upon first listen, there is little to distinguish the lush, ambient instrumentation and swirling guitars of Mark Kozelek’s Red House Painters on his 1993 album Rollercoaster from the drowsier moments on the The Cure’s classic Disintegration.
The healthy use (or abuse) of static by Codeine on their debut album Frigid Stars in 1990 calls to mind better known shoegaze bands such as My Bloody Valentine. Elliott Smith shares his whispery vocals and lo-fi sensibilities – most evident in early albums such as Either/Or or Roman Candle – with other American indie-rock contemporaries such as Sebadoh and Eric’s Trip. At the same time, acoustic moments such as ‘Miss Misery’ of Good Will Hunting fame are reminiscent of nothing so much as a slightly matured Conor Oberst, or a watered down Iron and Wine.
Perhaps what the sub-genre is best encapsulated by is a mood – melancholy. Slowcore is The Smiths without the irony, and The Cure without the kitsch. It’s not just about the lyrics – even Mark Kozelek can’t match Robert Smith’s throes of despair on Pornography. What Low achieves in albums such as Secret Name is instrumentation that is simultaneously lush and sparse, haunting vocals, united with lyrics disquietingly evocative of loneliness and loss. It is easy to imagine Elliott Smith’s ‘Between The Bars’ playing over a scene in Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation, as a lone car winds through the sleepless streets of Tokyo – the perfect ode to modern-day alienation.
Certainly slowcore bands sometimes fall short – ‘Crabwalk’ off American Music Club’s Everclear is closer to country than Shania Twain has been in almost a decade, while Elliott Smith seemed to have outgrown his days of meager instrumentation by his later work. For the most part, however, this is music for funerals – and with the lyrics to match.
Genre Bending: Slowcore
