Slow Crush

Slow Crush wanted to make the most out of being on the road. The pandemic both gave and took away – while it prised touring out of their hands, it opened up space to create their second album Hush and take a much-needed moment to breathe. A pandemic certainly didn’t stop them selling tens of thousands of records either. When governments the world over pressed play on live music again, the band threw themselves into Hush’s relentless touring cycle, relishing every opportunity to bring their swirling soundscapes in front of a live audience. Sold out venues and international venues beckoned.
This was their time to continue their ascent. Their debut album ‘Aurora’ was dubbed by Sterogum as “phenomenal” and “one of the best shoegaze albums of all time”, pinpointed as an album that helped to catalyse the recent shoegaze revival.

New music, therefore, wasn’t near the top of their to-do lists for a while. It goes some way to explain the four-year gap between Hush and Slow Crush’s new album,Thirst. When the time did come to head to the studio, Isa, guitarist Jelle Ronsmans and drummer Frederik Meeuwis decamped to The Ranch in Southampton, UK, to work with producer Lewis Johns (Rolo Tomassi, Svalbard, Pupil Slicer). They’d known Lewis for a long time and had always hoped to work with him, but fortunately when the time came to write album number three, the stars aligned.

Lewis was determined to push Slow Crush to the edge of their comfort zones and opening their minds to ideas that they might not have conceived of themselves. They had always thrived off spontaneity when it came to creating, but Lewis took that to a logical extreme. These songs twinkle with minute quirks and sounds captured in a manner that could never be easily recreated – the sound of snare rims recorded in a kitchen, odd noises created by random glitches.

One of the ideas Lewis brought to the table was to introduce a saxophone into one of the songs, which can be heard in the tail end of the album’s second track ‘Covet’. Once, the band thought the sound of a saxophone on one of their records was an inconceivable notion, but with Lewis’s help, they’d taken a hammer to any limits they had consciously or unconsciously imposed on themselves. Robbie Williams’ saxophonist was even a contender to do the honours at one point, but the job went to Lewis’s friend Hamish.

Even if they entered the studio not knowing exactly what they would leave with, Slow Crush had metamorphosis in mind. With every album, they want to evolve, but they’ve collected new stories and experiences from their time on the road, meeting people, exploring new places and cultures.
Sonically speaking, the most obvious difference is that Slow Crush sound heavier. The same vibrant textures, propulsive rhythms and gauzy riffs typical of their music are all glowing forth as ever, but this time, there’s a grittiness and a weight to it. It’s befitting of the band’s more multifaceted approach, through which they’ve dauntlessly gone to places long time fans might not have even expected them to go. There’s almost a contrasting Side A and Side B element to it too. It’s counterbalanced by the heavy guitars and dreamy vocals that Slow Crush have made their trademark.

Meanwhile, Isa also broken new ground in terms of how vulnerable she has been in the recording booth. While practicing, there were some songs she couldn’t make it through without dissolving into tears. Eventually, she could make it through them on a more emotionally even keel, but it nonetheless represented her deepest excavation of emotion yet.

Stopping to pause after the eternal forward motion of touring life, Isa realised the well of emotion inside her was overflowing, even if she hadn’t had the space to access it until they got to the studio. It meant there was a wealth of inspiration there too, within the constant pendulum swings in emotion and energy that the band had just been experiencing all over again.

“Being a frontperson can be a bit of a load bearing position. You’re trying to find a good balance for yourself, to be there for people, but then also take time for yourself to just regain that energy,” she says. “Playing and being in a band gives you a lot of energy but it also takes a lot of energy from you. After all that touring, coming home and focusing on the record, that atmosphere falls away. Putting your energy into something else brings you into a different mindset. You realise what you may have missed during that time, where you’re putting yourself out and trying to cater to everybody else’s needs.”

Indeed, one of the record’s overarching themes is what Isa describes as “the romance of being with a loved one”. Although being away from someone close for long periods might strain that bond at times, the return can feel glorious, the connection sparkling new again for a while. The band set out to capture the feeling of being tethered yet feeling weightless, absorbed in the surreal beauty of the quiet moments with someone. In Isa’s words, she’s pondering “knowing where your comfort zone is, being together with your loved ones and knowing that you can feel safe in that space, which is not always possible when you’re out on the road.”

Elsewhere, the title track emerges as the defining anthem of “an unquenchable desire for what’s next with focus on essence and balance”, marching forward with clearsightedness instead of losing oneself in the ever growing number of distractions swirling around us. The album’s more melancholy takes in the feeling of being “lost in a dark void”, missing a purpose or spark while feeling defenseless against the ceaseless passage of time.

Once Thirst is out of their hands and gains a life of its own when it’s released, Isa’s main hope is that people continue to listen and connect. “We want people to let themselves go and feel embraced by the music, so that they can experience it in 4D. That’s what we hear a lot from people who come to see us live, or people who’ve listened to our previous albums, is that we take them to another dimension, almost. I think that’s something that we miss in this day and age with everything that’s going on in the world, making us very aware of everything outside, but not allowing us to just be in the moment as much as you should. We want to let people take a moment for themselves and let the music take them wherever they would like to go.”

Tour Dates

Contact

Publicity:
US: Bailey Sattler
UK: Hayley Connelly
Europe: Denise Pedicillo
AUS: Janine Morcos

Management: Philippe Van Leuven

Booking:
North America – Jacob Bialosky & Alex Martin
UK/EU – Philippe Van Leuven

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