![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/slowdancers.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By Chris Bryson<\/b><\/p>\n
Slow Dancers recently returned to Winnipeg to release their newest mini album, <\/span>Philadelphus<\/span><\/i>. The new album returns to Slow Dancers\u2019 expansively emotive folk \u2013 slow and dreamy, sparse and serene, vocals atop a whisper, with stories to make the mind wander. <\/span><\/p>\n Jesse Hill, songwriter for Slow Dancers, is joined in the band with Marie-France Hollier and Cole Woods.<\/span><\/p>\n Hill\u2019s love for poetry extends beyond academia and literature and into his worlds of music. He moved from Winnipeg to Toronto for grad school in Latin poetry and although he\u2019s had some personal qualms along the way, his return to music hits a mark for something more. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe first couple years of my program were super demanding and I basically didn\u2019t do anything but work in the library. But I was pretty unhappy, so it\u2019s really been like, part of doing music again has been like I\u2019ve been wanting to have a more balanced life,\u201d explains Hill. \u201cSo I\u2019d really like going forward for the rest of my Ph.D. to be able to both do the academic stuff and also create music.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s an importance placed on lyrics in Slow Dancers songs. \u201cI\u2019ve been a reader of poetry since my adolescence. And the more I\u2019ve done that the more importance I\u2019ve placed in lyrics in other people\u2019s music and thus I\u2019ve found myself putting more and more focus on it as I\u2019ve grown up,\u201d says Hill. \u201cYou know it\u2019s not something that music needs. There\u2019s lots of good music that doesn\u2019t have much depth lyrically. I think it\u2019s like the relationship between music and poetry can be exploited more often than it is, and so yeah I think there\u2019s lots to be done there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Slow Dancers took a different route recording this time around, opting for lo-fi out of convenience and a desire to get the songs out.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe last album we recorded it in a really fancy professional studio and then it took forever to release because we sort of ran out of money,\u201d explains Hill. \u201cBut for this one we mostly recorded it ourselves to 4-track cassette machines so it\u2019s lo-fi and quick and relaxing and then we had our friend Joel help us with the mix and record the vocals.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a three-month versus a four year (recording) process for this release,\u201d says Hill. \u201cI like lots of albums that are recorded (in lo-fi) like that. It\u2019s not something I demand of music. It was really just <\/span>This is what we have, We know how to do this. <\/span><\/i>So it was a mixture of both convenience and desirability in itself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In discussing some of his artistic developments over the years and influences that have affected his work outside of music and literature, Hill says that \u201cI used to sort of have my exclusive subject be love, when I was younger. But now more and more as I\u2019ve grown older I\u2019ve sort of sought more diverse subjects.\u201d Hill says that he finds inspiration in memories and the world around him, in family and experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n In discussing the importance of making an album that\u2019s cohesive, Hill says that he really values \u201cthe whole cohesive album. And that\u2019s certainly something that I think a lot about. I\u2019m very conscious that these four songs (on <\/span>Philadelphus<\/span><\/i>) worked well together,\u201d explains Hill. \u201cIt\u2019s just one good way of putting music out into the world. You don\u2019t necessarily need your album to be totally cohesive to make an exacting statement. But for the kind of art I like to consume I like really thoroughly thought through works of art. So that\u2019s what I kind of aim to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Hill says that he hopes to do a weekend tour in Toronto and Montreal sometime this fall, and says Slow Dancers will probably play another show around Christmas time in Winnipeg. <\/span><\/p>\n With playing their most recent show since 2014, Hill says he also has some songs well in the works, enough for a new album, and hopes to record them sometime in the not so distant future.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Chris Bryson Slow Dancers recently returned to Winnipeg to release their newest mini album, Philadelphus. The new album returns to Slow Dancers\u2019 expansively emotive folk \u2013 slow and dreamy, sparse and serene, vocals atop a whisper, with stories to make the mind wander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[454,563,875,1159,1029],"class_list":["post-10851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-indie-rock","tag-local","tag-slow-dancers","tag-slowcore","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10853,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10851\/revisions\/10853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}