Slow Tiger: Slow Tiger

Listening to the music of Slow Tiger is akin to an encounter with an enormous, saturated rainbow. Their self-titled debut recording offers a kaleidoscopic palette of sonic color and otherworldly energy that remains endlessly fresh and nuanced. It is handily one of the best releases this year and yet another gem to come from the burgeoning Endectomorph label in NYC. 

Slow Tiger began as a touring collective in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. Keyboardist JP Schlegelmilch put a tour together with friends and collaborators featuring multi-reedist Adam Schneit, trumpeter Kenny Warren, electric bassist Andrew Dow, and drummer Nathan Ellman-Bell. The group quickly found a shared aesthetic that inspired a new book of original compositions. Every second of this 55-minute collection is packed with joy and inventiveness, making it feel fresh, evocative, and often cinematic. With compositions by Schlegelmilch, Warren, Dow, and Schneit brought into vivid relief by Nathaniel Morgan's Motown-inspired production, the album unfolds like an odyssey rendered in Kodachrome.  

"Powerpuff Backpack," penned by Warren in dedication to the late Ron Miles, provides a thorough sampling of the special qualities of the ensemble. The piece, like others throughout the album, features clarinet and trumpet in close alignment, carrying a sweet melody over the playful anchor of Dow and Bell's rhythm section and just beneath the slightly off-kilter, almost alien timbre of Schlegelmilch's Yamaha YC- 30 organ. Each player is present at all times in the tapestry while also inhabiting their respective role without abandoning any quirks. Warren also provides the ominous "Eleven in Six" that sounds like a lost alternative theme for multiple metronomes by Ron Miles, and "Light Pitcher Fixture," that begins with a droning ambience before settling into a floaty, rubato texture in the vein of 1980s Paul Motian.     

Schlegelmilch's three originals are a bit more stylized in structure, although the character they exhibit is no less emotive or wily. "Maritime Studies" presents a sullen, borderline clownish melody that walks trapped beneath a thick haze of harmony like a cheap toy on its last legs while "Mending the Nets" explores doleful psychedelia over a gentle waltz feel. Closing track "Slow Tiger"—the piece that gave its name to both the ensemble and the album—possesses a flavor of space-age exotica that could be deemed bossa noir. Schneit provides the breezy, driving "Wharf Street" that recalls the "grunge-band-with-horn-as-singer" approach of Jim Black/Alasnoaxis as well as "Song for Silence" that feels deceptively triumphant in the manner of an underscore for an acceptance speech. The album's jammiest moment comes courtesy of Dow's sole offering, "Funhouse," which builds itself up from a foundational bass ostinato and West African-tinged groove.      

From every angle, Slow Tiger is a wonderfully rich set of music that will find receptive ears across genre divides, scenes, and other fickle social barriers. The album is generous and warmly inviting. It would have been easy, if not predictable, for such an assemblage of uniquely gifted artists to trip over themselves, but the members remain focused on the larger musical picture of their work above all else, and their individual and collective love for the craft colors every decision they make.