2016 Review: Slowmotions

This is part of a 2016 Year in Review of yk Records releases... a healthy reminder to catch-up if you don't know them already.

Back in 2009, I convinced Andrew Brassell to let me release a bevy of songs he'd concocted over the years in his bedroom. The first Slowmotions records was a cobbling together of noodlings and late night creativity he'd done as a young musician and on his off time from And The Relatives; a band that released their final album on yk records later on in 2010.

He moved to Los Angeles shortly after that record came out and started producing and writing for others. I assumed his days making solo work were behind him. Fortunately, that was a very incorrect assumption. It's been seven years since the first release but The Domes is well worth the wait. It's available on bright yellow vinyl and available to stream in your ear holes right now. Everything about this record is a monumental step up from the previous. If the first record, Quick Potions, was a fever dream of pop songs this is a lucid awakening within that same world. Brassell's sensibilities haven't so much changed in the years between records but, simply, greatly improved. His strange guitar noises are more locked in and controlled but every bit as strange. To me, his lyrical musings, even at their most silly, are undercut with a melancholy that I've always enjoyed. Give a listen to "Banker" and "Man on a Mission" to see just what I mean.

The other upside to this record is that it breaks the seal on his output silence. I look forward to even more Slowmotions records in the future.