SLOW LORIS

Slow Loris in Trinity Bellwoods Park

       Slow Loris brought together a group of musicians to record the songs of guitarists, Jason Clarke and Daryl Smith. In 1993, their residency at Chemical Sound Studios produced a self titled CD that garnered favorable critical reviews in many North American publications. It quickly sold out its initial pressing, encouraging Southern Records of Chicago to buy it and commission a second. The Ten Commandments and Two Territories According to Slow Loris was released with this promo: The songs you'll find on this disc range from atmospheric swanky lounge music, lightly dusted with Tortoise-style jazz to trippy fusion to suspenseful mood music a-la David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet). Never has a trumpet sounded so smooth. Jazz is not a four-letter word when it swims around your brain as gently as this does. A word of warning, to keep you awake, Slow Loris has mastered the art of creating apocalyptic surges!
       Besides Jason and Daryl, Slow Loris is Dave Walsh on bass, Blake Howard on drums, and Brian Cram on trumpet, and keyboards.

ARTICLE
     "We just said, ‘Hey, we're gonna make a record,' which is what we did, and then we played a few gigs. Except the record sold, and people seemed to like it, and it got a lot of attention. When that happens, people expect you to play a lot of gigs. Except the record sold, and people expect you to play a lot of gigs and go crazy, but we didn't do that. We just hung around. We just thought, ‘Hey, maybe we can sell enough records to pay back Jay's dad.'" Slow Loris bassist Dave Walsh is modestly understating the case.

     In 1993, Slow Loris, a collection of various musicians from the Toronto area got together to jam, simply because they wanted to play together. Guitarist and Chemical Sound engineer Darryl Smith, Guh members Jay Clarke(guitar), Brian Cram(trumpet, keyboards) and Blake Howard (drums), plus Walsh gathered for a week, brought some songs, wrote some others during the recording period, and put out a self-titled EP. That recording combined elements of dissonant guitar, pounding, frantic drums, and a jamming feel to create a remarkable Slint-ish sound that many bands have since picked up on. If that EP was released today, it would be lumped in with the likes of Polvo and Gastr Del Sol, and be referred to as post-rock by over-intellectualizing critics.

     The record spoke for itself, as music should but doesn't always, and rock fans looking for sounds more exploratory than three-chord, three- minute pop-punk sought it out. The Slow Loris legend had begun. Despite critical attention and strong album sales- the EP has since sold all 1000 copies of its original pressing- the band didn't follow-up with tours, promotion, or a hefty marketing campaign. The fact that the band's first gig took place on Queen Street in Toronto is unsurprising- most of the cities rock clubs are located there- except that Slow Loris played its first gig on Queen Street, in front of a restaurant called La Hacienda. "That was the funnest one we played," says Smith. "We never intended to play any gigs. We just wanted to make a record, and that was it."

     Slow Loris was recorded in about a week: some of the songs were improvised, others had been written and worked out ahead of time. Guest musicians (as much as such an erratic project can be described as having guests) included the bagpipes of Guh's Henry Muth and the guitar of Change of Heart's Ian Blurton. The record maintains the feel of jamming out ideas, working through mistakes and inspirations as they happened. The band intended to keep the spirit of excellent musicians exploring each other's ideas before familiarity led them into patterns and habits. Since there were no vocals, song titles were added just to have some reference point for later.

     When the band played a few gigs months after recording, playing with the likes of Pavement, Red Red Meat, and Codine, fans yelled song titles at them, and the band couldn't even remember which title fit to what song. "We recorded the CD and then plays gigs a year later," says Walsh. "At that point it was anyone's guess as to how the song actually goes." People who saw a rare Slow Loris performance describe it as an intensely powerful experience of improvisation and sonic dissonance, and for many people, Those shows were highlights in a lifetime of rock shows.

     Everyone went back to their regular gigs, and like Phleg Camp, Slow Loris became a Toronto rock experience that veterans talk about, perhaps in the same breath as newcomers are dismissed. A year later, the band quietly released an excellent seven-inch on Montreal's Derivative label, and word spread that this was the last thing they would do. In fact, that seven-inch was originally designed to be a second full-length record, but time constraints and the fact that the members of Guh were leaving for a European tour a couple of days later, prevented more than three songs from being completed.

     Now, Southern Records (distributed by Sonic Unyon in Canada) has come to the rescue, and has just released The Ten Commandments and Two Territories According To Slow Loris. The new record that Guh has been exploring over the last couple of years: The avant-jazz of that project combines with dirgy groove- oriented bass on some tracks; Cram has added keyboards to his repertoire, which provide a soulful element; fucked funk makes its appearance on "Honor the Lynx" and hardcore pounds through "Thou Shalt Not Destroy Tokyo." The songwriting is tighter and shorter, packing more layered elements into each moment and the end result is a compositional masterpiece that seems more structured than the looser feel of the previous releases.

     The new record seems all the more remarkable considering that even less was written ahead of time for this project. "This one was even more refreshing than the other ones," says ‘'''smith, "because we didn't go in with anything other than some individual ideas. This was done in a much shorter time, too. We did the whole thing in one shot, with no rehearsals or anything. Everyone had little parts to bring in, and we developed them together. That's what we wanted- to do it as fast as we possibly could, to try and retain in interest and excitement in what we were doing collectively, and not make it a labor. We spent more time on the recording process, and a lot less time on the writing process."

     With the exception of a few overdubs, Ten Commandments was also recorded live off the floor; these musicians feel their way through a song and amazingly arrive together on the other side. "Nothing is conscious," according to Smith. "There was no conscious effort to retain the same sound, or even to change our sound. We didn't go into the studio with anything written down. We went in to feel each other out, wondering if we could even make a record. There were no preconceived ideas, and it just came out the way it did. I don't know if it's because we're a few years older, or we've done a few more things. I just don't know."

     In keeping with the philosophy of the project, it will remain a somewhat ambiguous entity. The spirit behind the band is of the moment- to play a ton of gigs, rehearsing and building up a live repertoire might take away the joy and verve that drives the exploration of Slow Loris. An occasional live show might happen in the next few months, but even that possibility hasn't yet been discussed by the band. "We're not gonna be playing a lot of shows," Smith says. "We'll let people know through interviews that it's out there. I just don't want to get stuck in a bar playing Slow Loris songs. That's not what this band is about, to me."
     Blake Howard chimes in: "That's not part of the bargain we made with the devil."