SLIDERS - S/T
Sliders is a new Bristol-based group
that teams guitarist Neil Smith of The Brackish with Chris Langton on drums, Harry
Stoneham on bass, and Dan Moore on keyboards. Like The Brackish, Sliders use jazz
– in both its compositional and improvisatory faculties – as a catalytic
aesthetic to merge various categories of experimental rock (psych, prog, kraut,
postpunk, post-rock). Both are instrumental groups that shift between and
intermingle heavy and playful tones; there’s an enviable balance that allows
grittier, shadier textures to keep the imagination engaged before light-heartedness
drifts into mere effervescence. If there’s a significant difference, Sliders lean more into
improvisational looseness on their self-titled debut album than the math
rock-ish complexity The Brackish can indulge in.
Moore is a member of the Will
Gregory Moog Ensemble. His Moog Sub 37 Paraphonic synth lines on opener ‘Jumper’
– drifting in and out of the jagged intervals of Smith’s arpeggios – evoke hallowed
effluvia as vintage as the White Noise Electric Storm era of British psych
electronica. The lightly hauntological flavour of his playing – further
enhanced as glistening trails of 70s Fender Rhodes lead into a Frippian guitar solo
– suggests a mood of temporal equivocacy as much as stylistic revival. The Sliders rhythm section lays down subtle patterns like tooled
joints allowing a loose ambit of dynamic shifts. Tortoise meets Weather Report to fashion a take
on the lithe modernism of Medeski Martin & Wood’s avant-groove. It’s all
very pleasantly eclectic – reflective of the streaming era’s access to instant
cultural gratification – until dramatic eruptions of noise rock leave an uneasy
sense of the sandcastle precarity of this consumer paradise.
Sliders’ Britishness is interspersed
within a wider Continental sonic placeness. ‘Kraut Crouch’, as the name
suggests, leans into echoes of the former West Germany’s contribution to musical
civilisation while the synth tone of ‘Rhumba for Hulk Hogan’ has Gallic
flavours of accordion melody reminiscent of a Serge Gainsbourg divertissement.
The former track’s opening keyboard theme, doubled with guitar, mixes mid-70s Cluster’s
sucrose euphony with Canterbury prog whimsy. It’s soon replaced by minimalist
improvisation, limpid electric piano starlight gleaming over straight-ahead
rhythm and repetitive guitar figures.
‘Improv # 2’ – inexplicably
sequenced prior to ‘Improv # 1’ – is a tentative jam reminiscent of such
abstract jazz-rock exercises as King Crimson’s ‘The Mincer’ or Miles Davis’
‘The Little Blue Frog’ with ring-modulated keyboard colourings and a Thurston Moore-ish
atonality in Smith’s fragmented guitar. The postpunk flavours continue with ‘Hip
Priest’, a maximalist cover of one of The Fall’s most skeletal songs; a
succession of triumphant prog arches extrapolated from the original’s liturgical
vocal line.
‘Zummerzova’ again contrasts melodic
whimsicality with tempestuous improv. And finally, ‘Improv #1’ gravitates
around a motorik synth ostinato that recalls the conjectural propellants of
Moebius and Plank’s art-damaged collaborations. Tremolo shudders of guitar conjure skronk in a Sonic Youth vein. The group achieve a sense of forward
motion as hypnotic as Can and Neu! but without the krautrock groups’ futurist
euphoria.
Sliders debut album is a
captivating kaleidoscope of styles and moods for which it’s tempting to use a
descriptor like ‘post-everything’. Given the ongoing normalisation of fascism
and AI’s cultural and economic destabilisation, it’s hard to ignore the
apocalyptic connotations in such a term. Let’s just say it's reflective music
that can remind us, as per Slavoj Žižek’s preferred form of
philosophical self-help, of the depth of the shit we’re in while still offering
some light relief in troubling times.
Sliders is out on Pig Records and available through Bandcamp:
https://pigrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sliders
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