SLO - Self-Titled (EP) - Review
With tracks like the heart-racing beats of “Pixelated People” and the enigmatic loftiness of “Live For What I'd Die For”, Jessica Rosemary Francis Mills started off her career dabbling in the various genres of UK funky and electro. Going under her shortened name Jess Mills, this musical passion which was originally financed by bartending at a local pub, got the heads spinning at Island Records which promised to push her upcoming album. Time passed and while the label’s interest waned, so did Mills’ prospect of releasing her album. With the delay and the record in indefinite jeopardy, Mills went back to the drawing board and it was from there with Zero 7′s Henry Binns that Jessica re-imagined her new project SLO. True to its name, SLO takes on a much slower tempo and a minimal yet more nuanced approach. Her latest self-titled EP under the name SLO features four tracks and can be generalized by its spacious, billowing pop ballads. It may be a bit sadistic to say so, but SLO’s echoing sadness on the record truly brings meaning to the old adage of the “struggling artist”:
A track about capturing that opportune moment, the opening track “Fortune” rings with distant guitar and Mills’ deeply-resonating vocals. Slow and sedate, things are slowed to a crawl on the underwater ambiance of Mills’ track about how “fortune favors the brave”. According to Mills, it’s a song about “fantasizing about that moment of escape” and the “patience and yearning” involved. Her first proper release as SLO, “Fortune” is accompanied by its Kate Moross directed video which captures the delicate movements and expressions of Mills’ as she tosses a chiffon scarf in the air.
2. “Shut Out of Paradise”
The second release by Mills and her subsequent video single, “Shut Out of Paradise” is without doubt the EP’s standout track. Decidedly lush and vividly-textured, the track with its gentle piano backing holds back a searingly emotive delivery of tear-inducing vocals. It’s a track that’s nothing short of beautiful and while this pop ballad maybe a tearjerker, it’s also a cathartic one about no love lost. Similarly we see the same Kate Moross imagery placed in its video but decidedly with more details in its “slo-mo” video stimulation.
A flurry of push/pull feelings among other conflicting thoughts, “In My Arms” wrestles its way from acoustic to electronic. Working its way through lightly-pounding piano keys and lush strings, the track builds momentum climaxing with bent electronics and sickly vocal loops. Thematically, the track is SLO’s most intense and is probably as worked up as we'll see on the subtle nature of Mills’ project.
4. “Nothing Hurts Like This”
Ending off on a flowery note, Mills’ sendoff track is a thorn in the rose of love. Given its title “Nothing Hurts Like This”, the sultry R&B of Jess’ falsetto vocals is adorned with glowing guitar and a tell-tale story of hurting to those closest to us. Detailing the story of just “another fight”, Mills explains the track in an interview to i-D about the duality of love and hate in a fraught relationship:
“It's a song about the irrational spectrum of emotion you can feel in love at any one time: the ridiculous things you can say to each other, the utter irrationality of those moments. It's a perverse thing that we quite often take out our hardest edges on the person closest to us. I was always taught that you should never treat the person you love like that, never have them be the person who experiences the worst of you. They are the rock that holds you up, so you should never chip away at it. You should protect them from that, not overexpose them too it. I guess ‘Nothing Hurts Like This’ is a song about that overexposure."
While the song may be not be the EP’s most charismatic given its wavering prose, the song’s melancholy eschews a blissful presence, a contrast to the gray hues of the record.
