Slow Dancing Society - Priest Lake Circa ’88 (Hidden Shoal)

Hidden Shoal delivers once again! There are instant gems in my collection from this Australian label, including albums by Sankt Otten, Wes Willenbring and now the latest from Slow Dancing Society. To listen to Priest Lake Circa '88, I retreat into my solitary bedroom, fall over the covers, and press play on the player. It's not that I am ready for a nap. But I do want to close my eyes and let the sound swirl around me, like little specs of dust rising towards the ceiling in the ray of sunlight. With my eyes closed I can truly hear. There are no distractions by the scrollies or the blinkies. With my eyes shut I can see the music. And it perfectly blends into an atmosphere of my surroundings. Somewhere a dog barks. A pigeon flutters. And my neighbor is working in his garden. The trees sway in the wind, softly brushing their leaves against my window. Or perhaps it is the sound of a washing waves on one of the tracks, accompanied by a subdued strumming of a guitar. Soon I see the water. Drifting away on my hastily made raft I am slowly approaching the center of the lake. Getting closer with every reverberated feedback, going farther into my saturated dream. Priest Lake Circa '88 is Drew Sullivan's third album on Hidden Shoal, serving as a conclusion to his double-album which began with The Slow and Steady Winter. The main theme of the album speaks of the nostalgic concept of "home", encompassing the things we leave behind and return to, within our short journey into this time slice wer call "life". With Bian Eno serving as the main influence for Sullivan's work, I could attempt to classify the music as abstract ambient meeting experimental shoegaze. Or I could just name a few of my favorite artists that come to mind immediately upon my first listen: Stars of the Lid, Hammock, and Bitcrush. If those are the names on your watchlist, then you better rush out to secure a copy of the latest (and all) from Slow Dancing Society. And let me know about _your_ trip.

myspace.com/slowdancingsociety
myspace.com/hiddenshoal | music.hiddenshoal.com

Two and a Half Questions with Drew Sullivan

What can you tell us about Priest Lake as a physical location and more importantly, the year 1988 in relation thereof.
Priest Lake is a beautiful lake in Idaho where I spent almost every summer at as a child. These past few years after moving back home from Los Angeles I've gone back to Priest Lake and spent the last few days of Summer there. The year 1988 was simply the era of the 80's that I look back on with the most affection. I was 8 years old and for some reason it seems to me that most of the music that I loved as a kid and that was coming out of that time was just really great. Lots of the cliche'd and played out 80's sounds were getting fused with a lot of the up and coming 90's sounds and it was done quite well and felt like a really nice balance.

How do you think, you've matured your production for this third release?
To avoid being funny, I've actually become quite immature for this release as I really played a lot of sounds on this album that were more youthful and less sophisticated as compared to something like a really deep Eno album. The way I made this album believe it or not was that I recorded an 80's Hair Metal/Stadium rock album and then pretty much delayed/reverbed and droned the hell out of it. If you heard the initial tracks before the effect treatments were added you'd be listening to an album by Warrant, Poison or Def Leppard!

Do you think you related closer to acoustic or electronic, and where do you think the lines vanish?
I'd have to say Electronic simply because of all of the manipulation that goes on with the various sounds that just can't really be obtained in a tangible/real world situation. If you were to perform my music live with nothing but acoustic instruments that aren't treated at all you'd need to have a room the size of Madison Square Garden to get the reverb effect as well as multiple other guitarists to create the chorus/delay effect... etc. I think the line vanishes just at the point where sound manipulation occurs. An acoustic guitar that is reversed I feel takes on an electronic feel since that is just not possible in an acoustic/analog setting.

Who is the protagonist in the movie of your life?
In an existential way of answering it I'd have to say that the state of 'wistfulness' would be the protagonist in the movie of my life. I've always been a bit of a daydreamer who's longing for that 'it' that is unreachable in this waking life. Now if I had to pick someone of fame, I'd have to say Owen Wilson. Just a laid back funny guy who seems a bit down but somehow finds a way to put a comedic and endearing spin on life and sees the beauty in everything.

myspace.com/slowdancingsociety | music.hiddenshoal.com