The final show by Bill Rieflin’s Slow Music Project has them emerging from a disconcerting miasma of mains hum. Happily however, static notes gradually mingle and after the dramatic intro,things are anything but slow. In what is arguably their most demonstrative set yet, the band of improvised pluck, scrape, bang and generally thrum in a startlingly dramatic fashion.
The group are certainly on form for their last public performance, sounding like massed ranks of de-tuned radios skipping across the stations. Flashes and shards of notes quickly coalesce above an oozing, quicksand of churning bass tones. Other highlights of the first set, Buck and Fripp engage in a soaring duet which in turn gives way to a ruminative exploration between Fred Chalenor’s prodding bass playing and Matt Chamberlain’s carefully considered drumming.
It’s Chamberlain who also dominates the early stages of the second set as well, although this eventually subsides into the more reflective territory in which the group specialised during the course of this six-date tour. During the peaks and troughs different combinations of players create their own weather, clashing on occasion, but sending some thrilling sparks flying in the process.
The glistening introduction to the final section (courtesy of Pete Buck’s butter knife) is a magical, ambiguous place indeed - full of morse-code pings and submarine siren calls. The ending is no less bewitching - ghosts of notes long since passed away briefly materialising and each in turn disappearing back to nothingness. A great end to an interesting project.
