Spoiler: ☥__SLØUGH__☥ is pronounced “Slow”
Good morning, my name is Sam Shadow of Shadow Zone Productions. I make music under the aliases ☥__SLØUGH__☥ and Silque Shadow. My latest release is a self titled album of material I wrote between the years 2008 and 2011. I feel re-envisioning these sounds has given me a lot of nostalgia, and a sense of closure. I think this is a lot closer to what I wanted to make back then, but lacked the knowledge and skill at the time to do so. I’m not sure at which point during quarantine my psyche decided to fracture into two halves allowing me to review my own album. It’s the only conclusion I can muster. After all what kind of egotistical jackass reviews their own album ?
Listen:
1. Nothing Human Disgusts Me
Although it’s the opening track this is the oldest of the songs I rearranged for this album. It’s also the only one from the track list that retained it’s original title. The original version was recorded in 2011. I used an arpeggiator from the first 2000’s wave of GarageBand to write the melody. It’s a synth I haven’t seen on later versions of the program. And it appears on a handful of tracks throughout the album.
2. Liminal Echo
This one was constructed from glitched samples of Forest House. It was recorded in July 2020. I gave it the name Liminal Echo because the samples and their spacing created a rhythm that felt very ‘in-between’ what would be considered a traditional melody. I wanted to try my hand at a Oneohtrix Point Never style ambient track, and the warm drone of Forest House aided to be good source material. This is probably the closest thing listeners will find here to my sound on A Day At The Beach.
3. Frozen Flavored Cherry
The original name for this track was Cherry Flavored Frozen Lollies, and it was recorded in 2009. The beginning verse was the main loop I had to work with from the original recording other than a few 30 second patches. So recording this one was challenging at times, but a rewarding experience. The breakbeat chorus and a lot of the lead melodies were later added to build onto the track and give it a fuller sound.
4. French Horn
This is a tribute song to close High School friends I use to record joke songs with, and the old GarageBand itself. On older versions of GarageBand you could record through a microphone even when the track selected was for a plug in instrument. The very 1st track I remember seeing on GarageBand was French Horn, so I just started recording a lot of stuff on that: vocals, guitar, etc. Mainly because I was lazy and didn’t know what I was doing on the program at that age. One time while we were recording a song we decided to give a shout out to the French Horn, which you can hear a sample of at the end of the track. One of those people was a close friend named Colby who passed away in 2016. So In the credits I dedicated this album to him.
5. Castle Dracula
I wrote the melody for this song sometime around 2010, but never recorded it until July 2020. The Return of The Living Dead [1985] is one of my favorite films and it was an adolescent dream of mine to create my own zombie movie. That never came into fruition over the following decade. However this piano riff stayed strong with me throughout the years. I’ve always loved soundtracks and I think this riff was a precursor to what would be my mid 20s dream: recording a soundtrack. And while I haven’t scored any movies or shows, I’ve recorded several songs over the years that were stylistically similar to a film score. I eventually named it Castle Dracula because when I listen to it now I imagine a castle on a cliff in the middle of a lightning storm.
6. Night City
Night City was originally called Boats Moving and was recorded in 2009. Just like Frozen Flavored Cherry, this is one I had limited room to work with. But after restructuring it and fleshing it out with more synths it took on a new energy. The lead melody’s contrast with the arpeggiating rhythm and hip hop beat made it sound more menacing than its original incarnation. The name Night City is taken from the cyberpunk novel Neuromancer by William Gibson. For me, it paints a not too distant image of driving around in a dystopian future on a rainy night.
7. The Mysterious Mr. Quinn
This was hands down the most challenging song from the album. I pieced it together from clips of two separate tracks from 2009 called Figments And Sheep and What I Do Not Want. But sometimes the fun is in the challenge. So when a handful of 30 second clips turns into a 4 minute track (hopefully without getting boring,) that’s an accomplishment in my eyes. The name comes from an Agatha Christie book that caught my eye, though I changed the name by adding two N’s. I also included some hidden artwork for this individual track when you buy the album.
8. Tears in Grey
The original name for this song was Tears in Rain when it was recorded in 2009. After watching Blade Runner for the first time I became immersed in the soundtrack by Vangelis. I felt inspired to write my own track based on that scene, but didn’t realize at the time how many other producers would write songs with the same title. So I eventually changed the name to Tears in Grey. Just like Castle Dracula, this was one of the big stepping stones in my love of soundtracks.
9. Forest House
Forest House is the oldest song on the album recorded in 2008. It was comprised of multiple guitar loops layered on top of each other that build into 1 melody. I got the idea from watching a Wes Borland guitar clinic online and seeing him create an entire song using a loop pedal. And while I didn’t own a loop pedal, I knew I could do something very similar with layers in GarageBand. I wrote this song on a Martin DX1 I got for my 17th birthday. The percussion that holds a tempo is me drumming on the guitar paired with harmonics. The original name of this song was Magik Zucchini, which I find to be a hilariously stupid name in retrospect. In the name of all that is occult and metaphysical, what the fuck is a Magik Zucchini ? Is that slang for some sort of O.T.O. VII° – XI° sex magick ? Anyway I changed the name to Forest House because it made me think of an isolated log cabin located deep in the forest. There’s something warm and inviting there surrounded by a haunting loneliness.
OwO wats dis ? u r still weading my post ? u have lot of detewmination ｡◕‿◕｡
I hope that you’ve found some sort of entertainment or reliability in the songs while reading this. I almost feel like each one is some sort of watermark from that point in time. It’s a great feeling to be able to rework this personal memento into something I can release as new material for people to hear.
☥__SLØUGH__☥’s new self titled album is available to download at Bandcamp for free/name your own price.
https://shadowzone.bandcamp.com/album/sl-ugh
But yeah, like… enough with the bullshit. For the REAL winners that didn’t read this review and just kept scrolling to see the rating, here ya go !
About Author
