Primer Slowcore

Though it may have begun as the result of a lazy journalist’s penchant for easy taxonomy, the slowcore designation now hangs steadfastly from the mantle of a loose collection of bands that rose to prominence in the genre label-crazed ’90s. The slowcore label comprises bands that are characterized as such not because they share a specific stylistic lean or uniform instrumentation, but rather simply because some tastemaker or another lumped them into the group through a perceived sense of, well, slowness.

Regardless of whether you accept the term, it can serve as a jumping-off point for exploring some amazing bands that have, at one point or another, been placed into this particular cladogram. In advance of slowcore pioneer Low playing Saturday, Sept. 24 at the Bluebird, The A.V. Club presents a list of the six best albums to get started on an expedition into the pulsing heart of slow.

Low—I Could Live In Hope
Low has become the lonely veteran of this genre, begrudgingly wearing the slowcore mantle around its neck like an albatross, but continuing to put out one great record after another. Though the band’s oeuvre includes a fair amount of bluster and noise, Low is best known for its ability to sustain a tone, stretching somber songs of loss and doubt into seemingly infinite laments. Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk can hold a note in harmony longer than skilled divers can hold their breath, and their albums create a mood like few bands are capable of, beautiful and glacial.

The For Carnation—The For Carnation
A little-known descendant of post-rock titans Slint, The For Carnation culminated its recorded output in 2000 with a self-titled release that is the very definition of sparseness. Haunting and blissed out in equal parts, The For Carnation is blues music for the laudanum set; the drums are merely tickled by brushes and serve as a swaying backdrop for the bubbling analog squeaks, etherized bass lines, and breathy vocals of Brian McMahan to brush up against.

Codeine—The White Birch
Even though Low is the band most closely associated with the slowcore movement, Codeine really got the whole thing going. Predating Low by a handful of years, Codeine’s output was small but influential. Experimenting with tone, pulling back from four-on-the-floor rockers, and slowing down song tempos allowed the band to create music that was caught between dream-pop and punk rock. Codeine’s second and last album, released in 1994, is a pitch-perfect meditation, poised and graceful, lighting off down a path that all of the bands on this list would follow.

Red House Painters—Red House Painters I
A shifting musical vehicle of singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek, the group Red House Painters was anchored by Kozelek’s lilting voice and emotional lyricism. He was at his most prolific during the first half of the ’90s, and Red House Painters I (also known as Rollercoaster), is a classic album on the 4AD Records imprint, a compelling batch of pretty songs with the heaviest of lyrics.

Ida—I Know About You
It may have been the split male/female harmonies that kept this group in Low’s shadow, but Ida never made it out into the spotlight. The group skirted the edges of indie rock, playing a rich and heady mix of somber music with rich orchestration and a dynamic instrumental setup. From sparse guitar ballads to songs that swelled up around string sections, Ida was perhaps too sophisticated for the times, with its music serving as foreshadowing for the odd instrumentation of indie rock in the aughts.

Bedhead—Beheaded
Painfully underappreciated, Bedhead quietly released some of the finest indie rock to come out of Texas in the mid-’90s. Although its music was not always in the provenance of what would be considered slowcore, the songs, which usually started out with layers of guitars building slowly into tempo upshifts and half-sung vocals that were evocative if anything at all, had enough in common with Low or Codeine that when the signifiers started getting doled out, these guys seemed to fit the bill. Beheaded is a masterpiece of the genre nonetheless, a sweet and measured album of rock ’n’ roll restraint, elegant in tone and confident in its quiet moments.