Slow Fawn by Sam Cohen

On his new LP, Slow Fawn, Sam Cohen rarely sings. When he does,
it’s about the limitations of words.

“I don’t have a lot to say verbally about these last couple of years. Everything was chaos. It didn’t need pointing out. Whereas music can transmit joy and healing, those words themselves can sound hokey, or just sort of evaporate.”

Accordingly, on this album, short stanzas of lyrics appear like small islands in a sea of meditative instrumentals. The scarcity of words (which happen to be some of Cohen’s best), inevitably give them a prominent spotlight when they do occur. All of this instrumental space allows the record to expand into a wide range of musical terrain, recalling at times the looped percussion and minimal jazz of Moondog or the bright glow of Terry Riley, while the songs pull from outside experimenters like JJ Cale or Todd Rundgren at their very best. Absent are the fuzz guitar solos of Cohen’s past work, replaced by moody saxophones and flutes played by Cochemea Gastelum and Stuart Bogie. The record features several other collaborators as well. Photay (Evan Shornstein) provides percussive Buchla synthesizer, piano, and some breezy drumming to the mix, while Oliver Hill (aka Dustrider) offers violin and piano, and Saundra Williams lends her voice to the hypnotic refrain of ‘Another World’. Bass and drum grooves are, like the vocals, used sparingly throughout the album, which floats as often as it pounds. Stepping out of his comfort zone was a central theme for Cohen, evidenced in his explanation of the title.

“I got into unfamiliar territory on this record, getting away from the guitar and songs and familiar things. I was approaching everything as more of a noob - kind of clumsy and vulnerable… like a slow fawn.”

The final result is the document of an artist’s emergence from isolation. Joy and warmth drift from the speakers despite the weariness and disillusionment of the era. From the first notes of the album’s opener,‘Morning Resolution’, Slow Fawn feels like a new beginning.