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Hey, so we made it home safe and sound after a ridiculously fun tour, which I'm sure I'll write about properly one of these days, but in the mean time, check out this Planet S feature the Mr. Craig Siliphant was kind enough to write.
Also our record is now available via the best digital download site around Zunior.com - http://www.zunior.com and as an actual cd via cd baby - http://cdbaby.com/cd/slowdownmolasses
MUSIC · NOV 20 2008
Slow Down Speeds UpLOCAL FOLK-SHOEGAZERS ON A ROLL WITH NEW ALBUM, TOUR
by Craig Silliphant  The Band: Slow Down, Molasses
The Members: an ever-evolving cast that includes Tyson McShane (guitar,
vocals, banjo, piano), Patrick Schmidt (banjo, guitar, vocals), Ryan
Drabble (drums, vocals), Chris Morin (bass, mandolin), Paul Ross
(guitar, lap steel), Adrienne Tastad (violin), Kristine Eggertson
(trombone, trumpet, toy piano), Shaun Mason (bass), Jeanette Stewart
(piano, vocals).
The Music: www.myspace.com/slowdownmolasses
At the time of this writing, Slow Down, Molasses had just released
their new album, I’m an Old Believer, and were touring Western Canada
to support its release — during which I kept getting cryptic messages
from main Molasses man Tyson McShane, and seeing ominous blog entries
from bass player (and fellow Planet S writer) Chris Morin. Apparently
they were encountering all sorts of madness, including driving through
a particularly devastating blizzard in the winding mountain roads
between Vancouver and Kelowna. This is all sauce for the goose of any
traveling rock and roll show, but once I knew they were safe and sound,
I had to laugh. I’m sure they just turned on some of the relaxed charm
they’re famous for, and the mountain allowed them to pass unharmed.
I’m an Old Believer is a folk and country journey, but one that’s
unique, crafted by musicians who are also into more contemporary
aesthetics — most notably the shoegazer movement pioneered by bands
like My Bloody Valentine. At some points, the record pulses with
grandiose instrumentation, as swelling strings collide with banjos and
pedal steels, creating vast and epic soundscapes. Conversely, a sound
as minimal as a drumstick clicking on a snare rim makes the listener
feel like you’re sitting in the room with the band as they jam it out.
With a group that started as one man and ballooned to include a myriad
of local artists, it’s perhaps understandable that McShane jokingly
compares the making of the record to Francis Ford Coppola’s
never-ending experience with Apocalypse Now.
“It was quite the ridiculous process,” McShane says. “We started
recording in January and finally wrapped up mastering in late
September. So all told, it took almost nine months of recording, with
the last five months being the most intense. We ended up with fourteen
people playing on the record and some pretty big arrangements. As a
result, for those five months I basically gave up properly socializing,
instead spending most evenings and weekends either recording, working
on arrangements or just coordinating everyone's schedules to make it
work.”
Though not the first country-ish act to utilize indie rock stylings,
Slow Down, Molasses have embraced a reasonably unique lo-fi approach to
music. There are straight ahead ditties with crisp production here to
be sure, but with song titles like ‘Hazy Summer Days,’ much of the
album sounds as if a drunken record needle is lazily dragging across a
dusty record — stripping away pretension, and allowing the songs
themselves to breathe. Even the album cover photo itself — McShane and
drummer Ryan Drabble standing on a lakeshore in a furry film exposure —
looks as if it were shot with a camera from the ‘70s, dug out of a
shoebox in someone’s attic.
“We tend to be pretty earnest folk,” admits McShane, “and I think some
slick artwork or slick production would make us look foolish, when
that’s the furthest thing from who we are. I think the little
imperfections in records are some of the most interesting bits. I grew
up listening to a lot of noisy indie rock, stuff like Eric's Trip or
Pavement and a lot of lo-fi indie stuff, and one of the things I really
like about that stuff is that you kind of get more of a feel for the
character of the people or how they work. Hearing bits of background
noise or loose, maybe improvised bits, or seeing the obviously
hand-made, unique packaging, [for example].”
Slow Down, Molasses started as a solo project for McShane, but over the
last year or so the group has evolved into a gang of musicians, many
from other well-known acts in town. Having a large band with a
revolving cast of players could have been very complicated to arrange,
but McShane dealt with it by letting the musicians contribute their
ideas.
“Finding people was amazingly easy,” says McShane. “Saskatoon's a small
town and the music scene is even smaller, so everyone sort of knows
everyone else and people seem just excited to play music and excited to
help each other out. As for giving directions [to the musicians], it
was pretty open-ended. In some cases people had played a show or two
with us, so we'd worked out some basic ideas, but for the most part it
was more telling a person approximately when to play, but leaving it
fairly open to their interpretation. In addition, I'm not a trained
musician ... so [I mostly thought it] best to just find people who I
was a fan of and trust their intuition.”
In the end, what was a bid for independence for Tyson McShane seems to
have provided him with an It’s a Wonderful Life approximation of
community and family. No man is poor who has friends, especially if one
of them can play the pedal steel — and that’s the vibe Slow Down,
Molasses gives off: of things falling into place.
“It seems like a Slow Down show now has to be a bigger production with
lots of orchestration,” says McShane. “So, it's not nearly as
independent as it once was, but this is pretty much what I was hoping
for all along. I really couldn't be happier with how it's worked out.”
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