Slow Spirit is Natalie and Eric, two sound-sensitive people looking for answers in music, art and practice. Sometimes they go out alone, independently filling their wells with tiny delights and shiny objects. Slow Spirit is where they come together share their findings. Abstract discoveries and language-less ideas heaped in piles like seashells and beach glass. It’s where their world views collide and clash, and
also grow closer.
That’s The Gods Talking is an album of evidence collected in support of the otherworldly. Glitches in the matrix that Slow Spirit has glimpsed in the beauty of nature, light, shadow, stars and those fleeting moments of intuitive connection. That’s The Gods Talking means that to accept these fragments might be as close as we’ll ever get to any answers. It means accepting how the truly unknowable can never be knowable, but asking about it, anyway. It’s songs are about wondering, witnessing, and taking note.
“Everything changes, and you are a part of everything,
aren’t you?” – from “Window”
The album was written among the social distance of the pandemic, while Natalie and Eric were living in an further isolated off-season tourist town on the edge of a
national park. Many songs were formed as a kind of S.O.S. – reaching through
the internet to a small club of songwriter friends saying, “this what I’ve been
thinking about lately” and “I hope you’re doing well.”
“If you can’t see the stars, and you’re shivering in the dark, call out your own signs, follow your own spark.” – from “That’s The Gods Talking”
That’s the Gods Talking was recorded by Liam Duncan (Boy Golden) and produced by Matt Foster using a handful of really nice microphones and a Tascam 388, 8-track tape recorder. Known for its efficient work flow and vibey sound, the album was tracked at a pace of 1-2 songs per day. Just enough time to write and perform these lively arrangements, but not enough time to waffle or worry.
The result is a mélange of propulsive acoustic guitars, agile drum parts, textural
synthesizers and strings, warm keyboards and fuzzed out guitars pushing at the
edges of the songs. It’s as if the sounds almost seem eager to break free from
the confines of tape they are recorded on, yearning to dance with the world
around them. Arresting vocals and heart-forward lyrics tie these sounds together and invite you inside, like a conversation with a good friend.
“Hard to keep a firework in your heart discreet” – from “Champagne”
That’s the Gods Talking is Slow Spirit’s fourth album. Their work has spanned the worlds of indie, jazz, post-rock, folk and punk and built them a dedicated core of fans that carry a deep respect for their craft. Among their inventive arrangements and instrumental virtuosity, there is always a heart of welcoming, warmth and emotional centeredness. Cups N Cakes summed it up nicely in a review about their most recent album Nowhere No One Knows Where to Find
You, “It’s a heart expanding feeling. It sounds like healing. It sounds like glittering magic potions and deep breaths and real joy.”