Description
Slow Accordion aka incandescent roots guitarist Oliver Wood (The Wood Brothers), Matt Glassmeyer, of New York and Nashville’s improvised music scenes, on his own strange Wurlitzer and percussion (Billy Martin, Lambchop, Aqua Teen Hunger Force), far-out, hard-grooving bass player Ted Pecchio (Col. Bruce Hampton, Doyle Bramhall II), and magically versatile drummer Mark Raudabaugh (Sierra Hull, Donna the Buffalo, Jim Lauderdale) present their debut album. The four boundlessly inspired, Nashville-based musicians (and longtime friends) had no preconceived ideas or concepts beyond coming together to conjure music out of thin air, purely in the present moment. The seven-track collection was completely improvised and recorded analog, right down to the tape running out halfway through the closing track.
Having only played a handful of shows up to the point of gathering to record at Glassmeyer’s home studio in Nashville, Slow Accordion would capture the music over three sessions in one room, with the four musicians in a circle, recording live to a four-track reel-to-reel. Each of the album’s seven tracks pits energy and tone against deference and collectivism. Solos give way to space. Spontaneous harmonies are underpinned by a free-flowing pulse. Sonic experimentalism resolves in emotional intention. The results range from the avant-country funk of “’71” to the blissfully meandering space-jam daydream of “Castle.” On “Mettle” the quartet is angular and mercurial, while “Easy Rock” hits like downtown New York City holding court at a Tennessee honky-tonk.
“We’ve all experienced how most modern music is meticulously recorded, so we pulled that drawer out, dumped it, and stomped on it. We want people to hear the spirit of the music moving us, exposing us, and being improvised in real time,” says Glassmeyer. “Everything was recorded analog to an old tape machine with minimal mics—the four of us in a circle, playing in the moment, pushing and pulling, and allowing the music to take us where it will.”
