rivate Times In Public Places, the first child from a creative umbrella named Slowsix, endeavors to achieve organic unity out of multiplicity. In the midst of a public realm, Slowsix echo the virtuosity and compositional rigor of their classical heritage; such is their bud and from it sprouts a blossom in the form of digital signal processing, whereby a computer, divorced from its role as a playback device, breathes in the sounds around it and exhales its signals as an idiosyncratic voice with its own idiom. The ensuing sound, a synthesis marked by a slow continuous pulse of Rhodes piano, as well as long plaintive melodies from violin and viola, is the ripe fruit harvested throughout these three comprehensive compositions.

A flipping through of static-burdened radio channels is first heard; now and again voices emerge: a radio psychiatrist remarks “its enough in the human condition to, you know, want to feel that your life is more actual”, another broadcaster gives the play by to a baseball game, while a distressed woman discusses the breakdown of family life. From this skeletal form, static shifts into controlled gaseous clouds of hiss, looped to give the piece a perpetual propulsiveness, whilst single elongated tones of Rhodes piano modulate at a glacial pace. These tones coalesce into a hypnotic seven-note motif that reappears throughout as a unifying element. The Rhodes is imbued with sedate, glistening hues and is gradually layered over a bed of reverberant drones so as to resemble dissonant string clusters. As the composition grows dynamically, washes of violin waft high in the air; permeated with lyrical qualities, it is a voice that warns of a looming tsunami in the form of berate, shrieking winds of electronics. At such moments, this rather compact ensemble breaks apart, injecting a free-blowing jolt back into the otherwise subdued proceedings.

Tonally, the difference between the album’s three pieces is negligible, but brief intersections of cadence, compositional structure and subtle background events veer this atmosphere off into new branches. The aforementioned digital signal processing, whose inhalation/exhalation of the instruments around it is essentially an act of breathing, being of particular interest. And like the act of breathing, its movements occur largely unbeknownst to our consciousness. But if one crawls up closer, its presence is palpable and has all the intimacy of someone asleep by your side. Indeed, under careful inspection, one notices these faint movements are largely relied upon as a regrouping device, a significant, if subliminal, part of a whole that would not otherwise function.

While Slowsix attain a reconciliation between players, their music is nevertheless imbued with a free-floating anxiety, which, at moments of climax comes to the fore: the calm breaths of electronics grow exasperated; stately piano chords are hit like a startled horse stamping its hooves and violin and viola take on scraping and sawing qualities.

“the lines we walked when we walked once together” carries on much in this vein. Whirring discordant tones, most likely a heavily manipulated cello, first unfolds in a drone-like manner, sounding like a buzzing bumblebee. Contrast is spawned by dissonant pitches of violin and viola splinters that soar in rolling surges. But at this point all instruments mesh into one almost indistinguishable haze; finally, midway through its some thirty-minute lifespan, the instruments split up, each making a sprinting break for it off in their own direction. And it’s then that Private Times In Public Places ultimately comes to bear all the traits of a living, breathing and growing organism.

STYLUSMAGAZINE.COM’S ALBUM OF THE WEEK – AUGUST 30 – SEPTEMBER 5, 2004