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The Slip: Seeing Double Playing Triple (Relix Revisited)

“Most of the time when we’re onstage, how we spend our time playing is on acoustic instruments and writing simple songs,” Brad says. “And I think that was another reason for bringing out this record—to remind people and let it be known that we love all kinds of things, from free jazz to electronica to classical Indian music. We also love the American folk song; we’re three American kids.”

Still, a Slip album of “American folk songs” is unexpected, though perhaps obvious in hindsight. In the past, The Slip successfully balanced craft songwriting with jazz composition by gratuitously including both elements on their albums. Their first two albums were heavier on the instrumentals, but by the release of their most recent (and most successful) studio disc— Angels Come on Time —the band had an increased focus on songs with vocal melodies. The live shows, then as now, still fluctuate wildly between composition and improvisation and are as musically free as they were back in the basement of the Red House.

“I am a true lover of jazz music,” says Brad earnestly. “It’s something that I love so deeply, and I have spent years just listening and listening and trying to absorb. If I myself can love jazz as well as Squarepusher as well as Led Zeppelin as well as Bob Dylan, I’ve got to figure that there are other people out there, like me, who also love that.”

When talking about his passion for all types of music, Brad’s voice becomes tender, his tone more fragile, as if just talking about it requires delicacy and respect, and when he says that he loves jazz “…so…deeply” he over-enunciates the words without meaning to. Then, with conviction and confidence, he adds that he’s not worried about shutting out the jazz audience: “If they’re alienated by Helsinki, they’ll probably be really alienated by some of the other stuff we do, like the harder driving rock ‘n’ roll that we love.

That harder driving rock ‘n’ roll is present on the band’s other new release, Alivelectric. Recorded in various venues throughout 2003, the largely instrumental Alivelectric was a premeditated live album. That is to say, before The Slip decided to release the Club Helsinki show (which they didn’t even record professionally), the band planned on compiling a double-live album culled from their 2002 New Year’s Run. That evolved into a single-disc compilation of live tracks from this year. A thrilling 75-minute ride through more familiar Slip territory, Alivelectric is something of a Hyde to Club Helsinki’s Jekyll. It is risky and edgy, expansive and exploratory, and filled with the kind of whole-band improvisation that The Slip is famous for.

“There were different ideas about how to release these CDs,” Brad admits. “We discussed releasing them together as a double disc (‘Elecoustic’), but thought they should each stand alone, as works related only by the fact that they are live recordings released around the same time. And I suppose you could say they complement each other.”

Although Live at Club Helsinki and Alivelectric compliment each other by capturing two different sides of The Slip, altogether it’s not about taking sides. “It’s about art,” says Brad unpretentiously. “I believe in writing and playing whatever it is that moves you.”

The cover art of The Slip’s Does depicts a painting of the band hanging on a gallery wall. The four people gathered around the painting have headphones on and are listening as they look.

Brad reflects: “I think that the best thing that I can do is just pay attention and write lyrics and songs that contribute to people in a way that makes them want to contribute themselves. That’s what art does to me. I see a beautiful painting and I want to write beautiful music.”

“There was a time,” he continues, “when I did feel like I needed to address some of the issues in the world. But then a month later I was like, ‘I need to address some of the issues in my life.’ You know?”

And so if The Slip remains undefined in their own eyes, to the rest of the world let them just remain a great band that plays great music. “It’s about art,” Brad repeats. And he’s right. Live at Club Helsinki is an artful album. It is soft, charming, and filled with romanticism and lyricism. Alivelectric is also an artful album. It is filled with emotion and expression and the same improvisational explorations that we’ve come to expect from The Slip. And if both albums are (as Brad says they are) about rediscovery, then Slip fans will have the added joy of rediscovering a great band, not once, but twice.