Slow Dancing Society:
Do We Become Sky?
Past Inside the Present
Mere seconds are needed to identify Do We Become Sky? as a Slow Dancing Society production, which testifies to how clearly Drew Sullivan has defined the SDS persona and style. The latest collection by the Washington-based producer is a particularly beautiful one, not just for its musical design but visually too. Credit Past Inside the Present with issuing the eighty-six-minute release as a striking double-LP set pressed on ‘Cobalt Nebula' vinyl and complemented by an equally striking sleeve (it's available digitally too, of course).
Whereas some ambient-electronic artists evoke peaceful pastoral countrysides, the typical SDS soundscape paints images of late-night, neon-lit city streets. The image of Crockett and Tubbs cruising through the Miami night with “In the Air Tonight” as the soundtrack isn't far away when Sullivan's music floods the room. He describes the new set as a “spiritual successor” to 2008's Priest Lake, circa '88, which is easy to accept when Do We Become Sky? exudes nostalgic yearning for a more carefree and innocent time and uses timbres (many sourced from a Korg Wavestation) emblematic of the analog era. According to Sullivan, a number of the twelve pieces emerged fully formed, originating as they did from “dusty and blurred memories of sounds from youth that seemed to transcend time.”
After “Prelusion” initiates the set in a controlled orgy of luminous synth blaze, the title track presents the album's first glorious exercise in time travel when twinkling arpeggios and radiant chords dazzle the ear in a soundscape as huge as the night sky. Another trademark of the SDS sound surfaces in the engulfing “The Past is Always Following Close Behind,” with Sullivan coupling sweeping guitar textures and oceanic synth swells. Calmer by comparison is “Empty Lake, Empty Streets … The Sun Goes Down Alone,” which simmers in a way that captures the loneliness of the insomniac longing for release. The slow burn continues with “Retrograde,” as quintessential a SDS production as could possibly be imagined. Sullivan's music shimmers and swirls through the static, whether it's visualizing the mist-shrouded stillness of “Cavanaugh Bay” or unspooling through the set's longest piece, the thirteen-minute travelogue “Devastation is the Path to Recreation.” While unease and foreboding underscore many a track, “The Return” oozes the kind of serene calm one associates with Harold Budd's 1980 album The Plateaux of Mirror.
His affection for the dream pop of Julee Cruise, OMD, and related artists comes through occasionally, albeit allusively. The gleaming chord progression that gets “Time Won't Forget What You Meant to Me” underway wouldn't have sounded out of place on 1989's Floating Into the Night, and “Another Heart in Need of Rescue” seems to hint at pop balladry despite its abstract instrumental design. One final surprise arrives when “Coda” flirts with song structure and presents a percolating, guitars-and-piano arrangement animated by a drum machine beat. Glimmers of melody always lurk in the background of these productions, sometimes overtly stated and at other times teased.
In the interest of full disclosure, Sullivan created a SDS piece for textura's 2019 Joni Mitchell tribute Swallowed by the Sky, but any perceived bias won't stop us from fully endorsing this terrific new collection. Do We Become Sky? is state-of-the-art Slow Dancing Society and indicates clearly why textura contacted him in the first place about contributing to its own release. Like a true artist, Sullivan's genre-transcending work bears the unmistakable and indelible stamp of its creator. It's also heartening to see him still operating at such a high level eighteen years after Hidden Shoal released his debut album The Sound of Lights When Dim.February 2024