by Daniel V. Garcia
Daily Lobo
It can be said that ambient music is a genre in which silence and sparseness are as important as the notes themselves.
Exemplary of this concept is Los Angeles' The Slow Signal Fade.
The band's album, Through the Opaque Air, is typified by a reverberating guitar which sounds like it is being played under water and backed by a drummer who appears to have studied her flams and rolls intensively. Think of Cranberries meets Evanescence, with a hint of Portishead and Pink Floyd.
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Singer Marguerite Olivelle described the band's creative process.
"We get together in the studio, and Ron (the guitarist) or Chris (the bassist) will play a riff, and we all write our own parts," she said.
The group's influences vary from person to person, which makes it hard to play a cover song, as each member has a different idea on how to approach it, Olivelle said.
Her vocals are clean and on point.
"I listened to lots of jazz singers and tried to emulate them," she said. "I liked how they can sing the same standards and how you can sing different ways and make it your own."
She said her lyrics are influenced by politics.
"Stuff is kind of overwhelming with anyone in our situation," she said. "We don't have control over anything, and things are frustrating," Olivelle said.
The lyrics are also influenced by emotions, she said.
"It's not falling in love, getting dumped, that specific, but it's about emotions and loss," she said. "It's something more general than that. It's something the listener can look into and figure out what it means to them. I like to paint a broader picture, so the listener can figure out what it means to them."
The group has an album in production with underground proponent Steve Albini, who has worked with Pixies, the Breeders, Helmet, and others.
The highlight of the album is Ron Ulicny's guitar work, which carries the ethereal quality of the music.
This music is a good example of minimalism done right, insofar as great attention is paid to the tonal quality of the sound. Because there were few overdubs on the album's recording, expect the songs to be fully reproducible in all their ambient glory at the band's live show.
