Music is often experiential, but none is more so than that which embodies the hypnotic. Drone, shoegaze, post rock – they all often tell stories through notes rather than words, and with Tomorrow Becomes You Slow Six does just that. The band combines classical music with rock in a way unlike contemporaries such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The emphasis is comparably on strings, but the sounds are much more cosmic – more along the lines of Explosions In The Sky’s post rock sensibilities, but with classical leanings and less of the soft-loud-soft progressions.
“The Night You Left New York” introduces the album with a pleasant drone of strings, which gives way after nine minutes to the agitated, dissonant strings in “Cloud Cover (Part I)”. Mixing in samples in “Cloud Cover (Part II)”, Slow Six builds subtly from the minimal conclusions of “(Part 1)”, not reaching any substantial increase in volume until the second half – even then it remains fairly minimal and drone-ridden. Like other instrumental post rock bands, some of whom add elements of classical music, Slow Six creates eerie, quiet valleys and monumental, epic heights.
The band shines brightest when strings are at their most endearing – tracks like “Sympathetic Response System (Part II)” and the anthemic concluding track “These Rivers Between Us” focus this instrumental energy into harmonic melodies that are at one moment dreamy and the next nightmarish and ferocious. This band proves that there is beauty in horror.
Slow Six takes just as much influence from modern classical and rock as it does from minimalist electronica – artists like Klaus Schulz and Brian Eno. From the swirling sounds to ear-piercing hums and purrs, Slow Six re-imagines the sound-scapes of time. The title of midpoint track “Because Together We Resonate” is a perfect designation for this music. Experimental, at times seemingly random, yet all part of a greater being, Tomorrow Becomes You is truly the cosmos as fully realized in conceptual song.
Slow Six: The Night You Left New York [mp3]
[audio:100125-slow-six-the-night-you-left-new-york.mp3|titles=The Night You Left New York|artists=Slow Six]
Western Vinyl [CD, 2010]
1. The Night You Left New York
2. Cloud Cover (Part I)
3. Cloud Cover (Part II)
4. Because Together We Resonate
5. Sympathetic Response System (Part I)
6. Sympathetic Response System (Part II)
7. These Rivers Between Us
