In the same week that EMI shovelled £80 million into the ridiculous figure of Robbie Williams, and The Rolling Stones Inc launched a US tour that would re-establish them as the world’s highest grossing entertainers, SLO-MO’s David Gledhill is contemplating an independent musical existence in Sheffield
‘Musicians are not the most balanced of
individuals… Getting on stage tends to attract attention seekers and I guess
I’m one, although it’s the music that attracts me rather than dreaming of
untold EMI millions. Being signed to Circus, who are a small label with no
corporate financing, means every financial decision is taken very carefully.
But that suits me as I’m not interested in being marketed as a “this” or a
“that”. I have complete control over every aspect of my music – from the
final mix through the cover of the CDs to making videos: I went to the local
film school and asked to meet the talent and was introduced to Ralf Bosch, a
young German director. He’s doing very interesting work and we’re making
videos together.’
Gledhill – known as SLO-MO to listeners – is currently heralded as a
possible saviour of independent British music. Two CD singles – Death of a
Raver and Girl from Alaska – established him as a musician with a truly
postmodern mindset. A forthcoming album, the eponymously titled SLO-MO,
delivers on the promise of those singles, proving Gledhill can write droll,
imaginative lyrics matched with a blurred musical aesthetic.
Death of a Raver encapsulates the SLO-MO aesthetic: a looped sample of Brazilian bossa nova queen Astrud Gilberto creates an alluring suggestion of life thousands of miles from a weary Northern industrial city before the vibe is kicked wide open by power chords, groaning electro fizz and a lazy hip-hop rhythm. Then Gledhill begins to sing-chant, ‘we drink/we lie/we stand/we die/we dance all night’ in a voice so world-weary you realise this is no celebration of mad lad hedonism. Instead, SLO-MO provides a twenty-first century blues aimed at a rave generation, many of whom have blasted themselves into a psychic swamp.
Is SLO-MO providing the death knell for the chemical generation? Gledhill shrugs, offering only that he’s writing about what he sees in front of him. Ironic, then, that his sounds owe a certain languor to the dilated pupils of trip-hop and other nineties dance culture ephemera.
‘I approach music-making as if I’m creating a collage,’ notes Gledhill. ‘I used to play in rock bands and so grew up with the thing of writing a song on acoustic guitar then rehearsing it, but 18 months ago I got a PC – not a Mac, I must emphasise – and started working with sound on that, and it’s been incredibly liberating. Sure, most dance music is created on computers by people at home, the same way I do SLO-MO, but my approach is very cut ’n’ paste. I love both the smoothness of jazz and the rawness of rock: it’s a challenge to see what I can take from both as I build the SLO-MO sound.’
Gledhill’s approach to composition is to lay down ‘ghost parts’ (samples and such used as guidelines for recording) quickly on his computer and build a collage out of them. He then loops the result and plays along with an acoustic guitar, strumming and singing and recording everything on a ghetto blaster. Two days later he feels sufficiently removed from the act of creation to play back the ghetto blaster demos and from what he describes as ‘a surreal creative experience’ he begins picking up the strands of songs.
The result on SLO-MO is an album of bedsit genius. Both Butch Vig (Nirvana’s producer) and Dave Ball (Soft Cell’s musical mind) have praised the SLO-MO album, with Soft Cell remixing debut single Death of a Raver. ‘Dave heard it once and said he considered it a really horny tune,’ says Gledhill chuckling. ‘He wanted to take it home and play with it so we let him!’
SLO-MO offers dense, layered music, their
sound drawing on whatever Gledhill feels feeds his tunes. He’s very British
in his laconic pop sensibilities yet international in reach. Manchester and
Rio de Janeiro are, it appears, the twin cities that bleed into the SLO-MO
sound. ‘As a kid The Smiths had a massive influence on me,’ notes Gledhill
without any embarrassment. ‘The lyrics and the attitude and the sound… And
Rio; the beauty and sensuality of Brazilian jazz, samba, bossa nova… I
consider Antonio Carlos Jobim to be one of the Top Five twentieth-century
composers. I sampled two of his songs for the album and we had to send his
widow the tunes for her to give permission and she listened and passed both!
Man, I feel so honoured that she’s allowing me to play with his music.’
Garth Cartwright is a freelance writer on music and art