Slow Club
Words by Dan Jude
For want of a better analogy, Slow Club are a bit like Pauline Fowler. No, they aren’t fictional soap characters that roam the make-believe world of Albert Square. Nor do they have a fruit and veg selling son called Martin. And no, they aren’t played by Wendy Richard. But what they do share with the cantankerous East End stalwart is an ability to come dangerously close to the action whilst ultimately residing within the periphery.
Just as Paw-lean Faa-laah flirted with the meaty storylines but avoided any real action in her twenty-odd year tenure in the Square, so too have Slow Club got a touch of the Joe Pesci about them. Based on their (albeit short) musical history to date, they’d certainly be serious contenders for the Best Supporting role without giving the De Niro’s of the folk-pop scene too much to worry about.
But all that’s about to change, as the best boy-girl duo since The White Stripes (yeah you heard us Ting Tings) are ready to stop being the bridesmaids. “Last year we did a lot of supporting”, Rebecca gripes. “But now we just want to do our own shows.” After jaunting ceaselessly across the country as second-fiddlers for the best part of a year, they’ve had enough of prick-teasing. Now it’s time for intercourse. And with an album out imminently and a spattering of summer festival appearances lined up, the moment has come for this far-from-gruesome twosome to step into the spotlight and taste success for themselves.
Not that they make things particularly easy for themselves. Forget guitars and keyboards; Rebecca and Charles are all about mixing things up. “We’ve used chairs and bottles a lot. Spoons sound good too. It’s just nice to use unusual sounds”, says Rebecca, confirming that Slow Club are more Spoony and Chair than Sonny and Cher. But don’t think that this is just cutesy-pie pseudo-Rolf Harris gimmickry. “It’s not to look quirky or anything! It just began because we have no money at all. We wanted a xylophone but couldn’t afford one so we used bottles, and it just went from there.” Apparently this experimentation was inspired by a friend who “boiled down a few joints and made a bone xylophone”, which sounds “amazing”.
Don’t get the wrong idea about Slow Club though. They may hang out with xylobone-crafting mass-murderers, but acquaintances aside, they’re twee as folk. One listen to EP Let’s Fall Back In Love confirms that they’re quainter than Belle and Sebastian in knitted jumpers at an anti Heathrow expansion bake-sale. Just make sure you don’t tell them that. “We hate being called twee”, Rebecca tweely protests. “‘Twee’ just seems so throw-away, light-hearted, or cutesy, and nothing we’ve ever done has been without thought. We want to be fun, but not ‘twee’. So what does she suggest they could do to change their image? “Maybe I should just get a crew-cut. That might help.”
Once you get past the initial urge to mollycoddle them, it’s difficult not to fall for their music. Thoughtful, heartfelt lyrics, hook-laden nu-folk melodies and 60s rockabilly-inspired guitar-work combine to make catchy but idiosyncratic jangly folk-pop. They’re not without their fair share of variety either, and with harmonies alternating between screeching and soporific, they do fiery just as well as they do doting.
Having grown up in music Mecca Sheffield, they’ve decided that the time has come to up sticks and make the move to the Big Smoke. So what do they fear most about journeying South? “I hear you get black bogeys in London”, Rebecca says warily. Snot issues aside, they’re chomping at the bit: “I’m just excited about having something to do when we’ve got a bit of time off, rather than just watching Eastenders and going mad. More than anything though, I think living in London will help creatively.” With an ever-growing army of admirers and a healthy arsenal of melody-led songs lacking in so many of the current crop of folk-pop pretenders, the truth is it probably wouldn’t matter if they were making music in Brick Lane or Bognor Regis.
http://www.myspace.com/slowclub
Posted Mon, April 20, 2009