“I mean, it’s all right there on the side of the can — it’s really slow.”
That was the compact answer Milwaukee musician Sahan Jayasuriya gave me when I asked him for a description of slowcore, the genre his band Good Night & Good Morning is most often classified as and one that’s having quite the resurgence right now.
Helped along by TikTok, Gen Z is discovering ’90s-born bands like Duster, Codeine and Bedhead, with modern artists like Ethel Cain obsessing and weaving elements of the genre into their own music.
“That’s the biggest thing: The tempos are slower than usual,” Jayasuriya emphasized, boiling things down before expanding on the core sounds.
“I think when it first kinda started happening in the early ’90s, it was in some cases a direct response to grunge, which was all about being loud and really hard and more uptempo and fast. To reference one of the bigger bands of the genre, Low, when they started I think it was partly a reaction among all these loud and heavy bands. What would be cooler than us being super slow and super quiet? And so I think initial influences — bands like Low and Codeine and Bedhead, stuff like that — kinda focused on the slower and dreamier side of indie rock.”
Less is more
It was a big statement to move in that direction and choose to minimize, yet the genre’s sound still felt expansive and full — soundscapes instead of songs; a more “waves of sound” experience than noticing the individual contributions of individual instruments.
Sound-focused music versus melody-focused music just automatically feels like it soundtracks your life whenever and wherever you listen, making even the most mundane scenery or environs seem profound. That omnipresence became easier after the advent of the iPod, which Champaign/Urbana native Ryan Brewer said was unwittingly integral to forming slowcore project Good Night & Good Morning with Pat Elifritz (vibraphone).
“Suddenly, we had access to tons of music that you could just listen to on your headphones everywhere, which was of course a thing with Walkmen and CD players and stuff like that,” he said, adding that the iPod’s ability to hold so much more music and be even more portable allowed him to get “really interested in music that fit my surroundings.”
“We didn’t really become a slowcore band in my mind until Pat and I moved to Chicago together to go to college, and we spent a lot of time on the train with headphones on in this dark and cold city,” Brewer shared. “This music that fit the atmosphere started making its way into my listening routine, [and] there’s something about letting the music breathe and letting it have some space to resonate that hits you a little bit harder when they’re not coming at you so fast.
“It just gives you a space to exist in. You’re not listening to a melody so much as to an atmosphere of space that you want to exist in.”
Taking in atmospheric music in the cold and challenging clime of Chicago directly inspired Brewer and Elifritz to begin writing, creating and artistically designing their songs and sets out of their shared listening and living experiences (Elifritz is also the creator of all of the band’s artwork and stage visuals).
Good Night & Good Morning’s 2009 self-titled debut EP was dreamt up, built and issued — then nothing really happened. A couple people bought the release, and Brewer and Elifritz got to go on tour and play with other still-unknowns in places inappropriate for beautiful, quiet music (often with the sound of coffee beans grinding in the background).
They played with Sharon Van Etten before anyone knew who she was. They played with Bayonne and Doby Watson and were just flying and flying and flying some more under the radar — an altitude that turned out to be the level necessary for their next chapter.
Everything in its right place
The sleeper of a debut was ultimately what brought Jayasuriya to Brewer and Elifritz. He was introduced to (and became obsessed with) the duo due to his penchant for anything ambient or Kranky Records-related, as well as his access to that material thanks to his time working at Milwaukee’s storied Atomic Records.
Based on that criteria — and also being less than a couple hundred miles north — it was only natural that the music of Good Night & Good Morning magnetized him. It was also natural that he would be one of the two people Brewer and Elifritz didn’t know who bought the EP, after which Jayasuriya drove down to Chicago to catch a show and fanboyed after the duo’s set.
They laugh about it to this day, yet from there they genuinely and immediately bonded over a shared love of beautifully slow music: American Analog Set, Bright Black Morning Light, Low and beyond. Brewer and Elifritz invited Jayasuriya to join on drums, and he accepted. The addition was effortless because, as Elifritz put it, “We had a Sahan-shaped hole in our sound.”
Indeed, Good Night & Good Morning’s languishing soundscapes are made even more vibrant by Jayasuriya’s well-placed percussion, keyboards and samples. But the band has moved forward in more ways than just that.
Ten years later, Brewer is now based in Austin, Texas, playing in the group Calliope Musicals. Elifritz is curator of new media and technology at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit. Jayasuriya is in Milwaukee, writing a book about hometown hardcore punks Die Kreuzen while producing and making music and beats under the name Cold Lunch.
The three have always stayed in touch but recently rejoined via the new wave of slowcore pushing new life into a fresh edition (technically a 10-year anniversary vinyl repress) of their 2012 full-length Narrowing Type. Energy Crow Records out of California is already on their second pressing of the record, which speaks volumes of the interest. Notable indie rocker Ethel Cain is a fan, using the band’s music between sets onstage and reaching out with genuine admiration.
The slowcore genre’s resurgence is creating not only a new buzz around those early bands and their proteges, but also modern shadow bands reinvigorating other adjacent genres such as shoegaze. The time is more than right for a re-press of Good Night & Good Morning and to have that re-press sell out for a feel-good and redemptive chapter to the band’s story.
But maybe that’s the true beauty of making slowcore music: It doesn’t necessarily hit the first time around; it’s got to be the right time to make its true mark. Intentional songs travel that slow and steady road, but once a true fan finds it on the path at the right time, it will hit them all the more, becoming a landmark sound for years and listens to come.
Good Night & Good Morning play Cactus Club on Nov. 9 as part of the Music Go Round x Volta Records All-Ages Show series alongside Hunter and Apollo Vermouth.
