The taste-making label strikes gold with a compilation that should be the benchmark in curating intimate creativity.

Compilations. The albums everyone loves to hate. From the Now 71 CD you’re desperately trying to flog on to Cash Converters to the unwanted Greatest Hits of insert band here bequeathed by an office acquaintance, they’ve received a bad rep and not always for unjustified reasons. Luckily for us, Slow Dance Records have embraced being exceptions to the rule. 

Slow Dance ‘23, the eighth such release from the tastemaking label, arrives with a natural expectation given their track record for promoting undiscovered talent on the cusp of a great wave. Such a reputation could lead listeners to treat this compilation as a quasi-shopping list of Hot New Music™, especially with alumni including musicians from Goat Girl, Sorry and black midi, but to do so would be a disservice to both the quality provided by every artist on this record and the impressive care with which Slow Dance has delicately curated it. This is no run-of-the-mill showcase. It is a meticulously crafted album that amplifies the inherent strengths of each song through its neighbours. 

Guided by a fresh yet claustrophobic production style, intimacy is the equator here that links every divergence into the wild and wonderful. Every track has the feeling of being stumbled across, a rough piece of beauty unassumingly discovered amidst a brutalist backdrop.

Plutoz Beach - More Than A Drunken Night

Ex-Fatdog frontwoman Plutoz Beach, often found bewitching audiences at The Windmill, kicks off proceedings with sticky sweet melodies that puncture through the sea of noise instrumentation. The avant-garde bells and whistles are glued together with a delicate desperation aching to feel better, and done so with such deftness that they both challenge and comfort in equal measure. 

Silkworm - HORNET 

HORNET soon grounds us with a tense and tetchy affair that manages to pull off the sensation of being both patient and overstimulated. Skittish washed drums drive forward melancholic guitars, creating a swirling pace that belies the restrained yet purposive vocals. It brings memories of late-night journeys where a moment of tranquillity is found in the dead centre of the overwhelming pace dancing around you. 

Handshake - Lipworms

Things kick up a notch with the spooky and sleazy chug of Lipworms’ ‘Handshake’. Its origins as a 15-minute jam are apparent, with a cocksure attitude that manages to meander with an infectious conviction. Dripping with acid influence and scuzz rock, ‘Handshake’ slopes around with the casual confidence of an alpha animal waltzing around its territory. In the band's own words, it ‘sounds like the internet screaming’, and feeling pretty bloody cool whilst doing so. We remain in the bleak desperate landscape drawn up by HORNET and Plutoz Beach, but are now strutting around with adrenaline rather than scratching our wrists and overthinking last night's mistakes. 

My Father’s Sheep is Dead - Milkweed 

Our journey takes its first serious left turn with Milkweed’s ‘My Father’s Sheep is Dead’, a seamless change in genre that helps you view the song and what preceded it in a new light.

Glitched production that avoids the pitfall of existing for the sake of being different adds space and tension to the track’s inherent melancholy. This is adorned with lyrics taken from ‘Tsonga Rain Songs’, published in the journal of the Folklore Society in 1979. It is unnerving, potent and brilliant in conjuring a bleak and desperate picture. 

Something in the Lake - Blind

Something In The Lake snaps us back into the grim grey of modernity. Centred in more traditional sonic surroundings, ‘Blind’ still manages to pack so much into its brief runtime. The crisp rhythm gasps throughout, punctuating an aching vocal where every word uttered sounds physically painful to express. The waltzing piano beautifully closes a song composed of patience that demands your attention. 

Shrine - feeo

After the concrete jungle of reality, feeo submerges us back into the murky depths. Theodora Laird, the brainchild of feeo, has already garnered critical acclaim for giving a creative voice to the introverted, and ‘Shrine’ more than lives up to this swelling reputation. It exists under constant overwhelming pressure, with each distorted harmony punctuating the treacle-esque bass that sounds like a distant broken radio emitting its last crackles from the depths of the ocean floor. At once desperate and submerged, ‘Shrine’ manages to transmit a ray of tranquillity that pierces through a skull-crushing sense of being trapped by weight.

The Cuckoo's Nest breaks Under your Heaven - Cuckoo Spit

Things stay swelteringly pained on Cuckoo Spit’s ‘The Cuckoo's Nest Breaks Under Your Heaven’. Picked guitars sway between your ears, anchoring the not-quite-nonchalant, not-quite-anxious charm of Lottie Morton’s voice. Both disorientating and meandering, Cuckoo Spit uses simplicity to great effect, never feeling the need to overburden the song and allowing its tender heart to speak for itself. 

Pokes - FLOCO 

FLOCO’s ‘Pokes’ follows on from Cuckoo Spit’s offering so well that it feels like both songs were designed to exist together. The watery and gentle production keeps us in the same world, before alt-pop glitches and flashes cause the story to cave in on itself, breaking the foundations before searching strings guide us out to an aching conclusion. With vocals barely able to escape the breaths carrying them, FLOCO brings together discordance and sweetness into a brilliantly depressing combination.

¾ - Hank

You’ve probably heard whispers about this elusive outfit, but little else beyond the well deserved hype. ‘¾’, despite its blink-and-you’ll-miss-it run time, is more than enough to put weight behind the reputation. It is unashamedly lo-fi and gone in a flash, but leaves you with enough questions circling your brain to urge you to keep coming back. It’s as if you’ve glanced at a party through a window that is simultaneously suspicious and enticing. A snapshot into something far cooler than wherever else you’re wearily dragging yourself to. 

Jagged - Luke Kulukundis

Ticking distorted drums anchor spacious melodies on this offering from producer, songwriter and artist Luke Kulukundis. Angst builds with every quirk and left turn, but never fully breaking the sadness that cloaks the song’s frustration, bridged by a desperate refrain of ‘I’m just waiting to wash my hands of death’ before the glitchy instrumentation crackles away culminating into a heavy drone slipping in and out of pitch. Kulukundis draws on a myriad of sounds to give a unique backdrop to this angsty tale as old as time.

Supercolony - Lost Lyra

Lost Lyra’s ‘Supercolony’ carries a gentler, less intense tone, but certainly not at the expense of emotional power. The dream pop 4-piece takes us for an amble rather than a stumble through sadness, with crisp and deliberate production fuelling a purpose throughout the track without ever sounding forced. Delicate and delightful, like crying with silent movement in the back of a car whilst snaking through an idyllic countryside evening.

Hideaway- Velvetine

Post-rockers Velvetine have been bringing a much-welcomed dose of gothic glam into the London scene, making an impression with their louche vocals atop dense and pulsing guitars in a style reminiscent of the best of Savages. ‘Hideaway’ captures the bleak despair of a world crawling towards a brutal end of its own making, viewed with a cocktail of innocence and resigned confusion. It builds a pain that fills every corner of your ears, with enough doubt behind the power to keep you constantly guessing.

Out Of Harm's Way - Gordian Stimm

Things ain't getting any happier with ‘Out Of Harm's Way’. Gordian Stimm offers a dollop of self-doubt and conflicted motives, painted with harpsichord-tinged synth sweeps across unsettled rhythms that echoes the best hidden treasures of emo’s heyday. Messy and pained, but pieced together with meticulous care, Stimm’s exhaustion is palpable as we career through a maelstrom of torment.

Into The Grass - Jesus and the Zealots

Who fancies a trip to the theatre? Proggy psychedelic goths Jesus And The Zealots stick 20 quid in the grandiosity metre and polish up the red curtain with “Into The Grass’, a song made for a stage somewhere near the end of the world. Guitar harmonies soar over a beat that feels like arms raised aloft, if that’s even possible, before a flute-infused finale soundtracks a final act that feels richly deserved. Catch them playing across London and save yourself £100 on a knock-off Phantom of the Opera ticket courtesy of Viagogo.com

end of the world - Piper Toohey 

Piper Toohey brings back the patience with a far less dramatic view of the end of the world. Their musings on the nature of humanity sit delicately atop sweet electric pianos, the infliction of every syllable curated with exquisite care. It claws softly at your perceptions, echoing the vague unanswerable questions that prick your subconscious when you’ve just about begun to feel alright. 

C_Fe - DUNCE

DUNCE’s blend of jazz and ambience brings a welcome dose of catharsis as the compilation nears its conclusion. A mournful trumpet leads the way over a skittish yet affirmed beat, never shouting too loud but never lost for words. Tinged with the sweetness you’d expect to find on anything from the world of Kieran Hebden, ‘C_Fe’ centres you from existential doubts and invites you to simply enjoy your favourite park bench and a reasonably priced soft drink in the sunshine.

Perfumed Nights - GG Skips

Our gentle stroll towards the end continues with ‘Perfumed Nights’, a hug in a song from artist/curator/general busy boy GG Skips. Patient and homely, it has all the warm touches of a song from a bygone era, with sparkling embellishments that allow it to sit with strength in the present. Clinked pianos and horns evoke the sensation of swinging your legs whilst perched on a good wall, taking in a beautifully peaceful day.

War, n.d - n.o Art Ensemble

Our closing number is an understated ending that encapsulates everything great about this compilation. It is painfully delicate, never settled, and ripe with odd turns and whistles that build expertly over everything that precedes it, speckled with cherries from across musical history. 

The stark, soft solo drum that leads us out of the song shows that, with the right artistic restraint and curiosity, the simplest of sounds can carry the greatest poignancy.

Every artist Slow Dance has gathered here has mastered this concept. Each song contributes towards a record that demands your immediate attention with its creativity and rewards your patience with layer upon layer of pain and doubt. Most of these songs will find a way of worming themselves into your life story, and my advice is to let them. It is rare to find songs that so expertly distil your emotions before you’ve even begun to start comprehending them yourself, and Slow Dance ‘23 has triumphed in collating artists who can deliver this in such a wide range of ways.