SLIFT: Space Is The Place

The stadium-sized sonic thrashing that SLIFT whip up is like the soundtrack to some unmade Terry Gilliam-like mystical adventure where weirdo characters and bizarro world happenings appear around every corner, causing raucous mayhem.

On Ilion, the French psych-rock trio’s Sub Pop debut released earlier this year, that vibe is achieved with mind-blowing flying colors.

Made up of literal sonic brothers in arms, Jean (guitar and vocals) and Rémi Fossat (bass) with Canek Flores (drums), SLIFT have been unloading a hellacious noise and effects pedal-stomping din where stoner metal riffage, psychedelic freak-outs, free-improvisational noodling and locked-in Krautrock grooves collide in all its weed-clouded glory.

It took a few albums but SLIFT has ultimately realized their ecstatic vision on its magnum opus, Ilion. They leave no stone unturned, as they shred through, space out and light up on epic zoners that are mostly in the staggering nine-to-twelve minute range.

Rock & Roll Globe caught up with Jean via email as he and his bandmates were prepping for a tour of the States, which will conclude with an appearance at Levitation Fest in Austin, TX on Halloween weekend, where they will be performing alongside Jesus Lizard, Dry Cleaning and Gang of Four on Nov. 1.  

Catch SLIFT on tour here. Ilion is out now.

 

Jean, first off, I watched your KEXP performance from last year and in it you’re wearing a Sun Ra tee. I can definitely connect SLIFT to Sun Ra and I totally see you guys would be into his vibe. Are you fans of the Ra? What have you taken from Sun Ra’s ethos and brought into SLIFT’s music and vision?

I really like Sun Ra, especially the album Lanquidity. Beyond Sun Ra, it’s the free jazz ethos that speaks to me. We listen to Coltrane (John and Alice), the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and the freedom and expressiveness of this music fascinates me.

 

VIDEO: SLIFT live on KEXP 2023

 

Speaking of Sun Ra, you named your first EP Space is the Key. Could that have been a play on Ra’s “Space is the Place?” SLIFT has that space/psych rock thing going on in the music. Space is definitely a key element in SLIFT’s sound-world.

It could have! But if I remember correctly I must have read “Space is the key” in an article on Hawkwind, and that sentence stuck in my head. It fit with the sound we were looking for at that time.

 

Let’s talk about your label Sub Pop, which just released the awesome Ilion. I’m thinking it’s a big deal for you guys to land on Sub Pop. What does it mean to you to be on such a celebrated label?

We are very happy and honored to be able to work with them! For three guys from the French countryside it is clear that it is something. This label is an institution. But we were not going to change our creative process, and so we were very pleasantly surprised that Sub Pop were interested in our Ilion, which is a double album with rather long tracks…They are music lovers, and I think it is great that they take the liberty of releasing this kind of record!

 

Are there records and/or bands that Sub Pop has released over its history that have been a major influence on you and helped shape your musical path?

It’s an obvious answer, but we, like many rock bands on earth, were influenced by Nirvana when we started playing music. I really like Love Battery, and today there’s Metz!

 

 

There’s epic free-improv freak-outs and shred jams going on, especially on the new record. Can you talk about the songwriting process?

I usually compose riffs, atmospheres, chord progressions, or even the whole song. Then the three of us work on it in rehearsals, and that’s where the whole epic free-improv aspect comes in! On each song we want to be able to express ourselves on our instruments, and for things to evolve. When we play concerts in venues, we like to extend certain parts, or play a solo in a different way. I find that interesting because it forces us to be “in the moment”, we can’t play our music on autopilot. That’s the thing I’m most afraid of, to catch myself playing on autopilot!

 

So some of SLIFT’s music is born from jamming in the studio.

There is definitely a part of composition, but we leave room for improvisation. I really believe in happy “accidents” in music. Sometimes we will jam and the song will take a completely different turn than the one we were aiming for at the beginning. And that’s great! When recording Ilion, three quarters of the song “Uruk” we were improvising during the first take in the studio, the song had no ending, we just knew that we wanted to play this crushing riff at the end…But it was all built in one take, that’s the advantage of playing together for a very long time!

 

I’ve read interviews with you where you say you’re a voracious reader. Which book (or books) were you reading that might have played an integral part, both lyrically and musically speaking when Ilion was coming together? Ilion seems to come from a conceptual angle and also very cinematic. It tells a story, albeit abstractly.

I started to get interested in magic realism. I used to read a lot of science fiction, but I’m moving away from it at the moment, and authors like Borges, Dino Buzzati or Italo Calvino inspire me enormously for the next album we’re working on. Concerning Ilion, there is a lot of Homer and Hyperion (Dan Simmons), after all this record is part of the narrative continuity of Ummon, our previous album. There is also a bit of Borges that I was starting to discover towards the end of writing the record.

 

Each SLIFT record seems to have a different vibe. To me, Ilion seems more jammy, expansive and experimental-leaning. Since this new record had Sub Pop behind it, did you have more time in the studio to go deeper into the songs, tinker, overdub stuff, add effects and synths and really perfect the songs? In other words, how different was making Ilion compared to previous records?

The main difference with our previous album Ummon is that the studio of our sound engineer Olivier Cussac was destroyed by decision of the Toulouse city hall to build a hotel building instead! So we shook up our habits and went to record elsewhere with him. So it was different, rather stressful at the beginning because we no longer had our bearings, but I think we got through it well. We then took all the time to mix, experiment, and build the album in his living room, which he had converted into a

mixing room. It was a good time like always with him!

 

The rhythm section made up of your brother Rémi and Canek is massive and so locked in. Can you talk about the chemistry that Rémi and Canek have where they can lock in on a heavy and crazy groove and it gives you the freedom to freak out and go off on crazy solos and do your thing?

I think you summed up our sound pretty well! They’ve been playing together for a really long time, way before SLIFT. It’s something that can’t be replaced and it gives a certain touch to this “rhythm section.” They know each other by heart, and I also suspect Canek to be a real metronome man. But for the moment we’ve never had to change his batteries, so I still have doubts about his true nature.

Speaking of Rémi, what’s the dynamic like being in a band with your brother? Does he turn you on to different bands and new music and vice-versa?

It’s going really well, we’ve never really argued in our entire lives, so it’s pretty natural. Rémi listens to a lot of rap, a music that I love but that I don’t really know much about except for a few classics. We listen to a lot of things in common, we built ourselves together, and more generally we still spend a lot of time together, between family and SLIFT, and all our mutual friends!

 

You’re about to kick off an American tour. What’s it like in the SLIFT van? What are you guys listening to on the road?

I’m going to disappoint you but in the van most of the time we sleep haha! Routing is not always easy and our set requires a lot of energy. I drive very rarely, but when Canek drives, he plays Boards of Canada, Coltrane or Tool.

 

I’m curious to hear about the French DIY underground rock scene that you emerged from. Are there clubs and spaces that gave SLIFT a home at to play? And are there other like-minded French bands who you share a kinship with we should check out?

In Toulouse there is the bar Le Ravelin, I can’t count the number of times we played there at the beginning of the band! It books all the underground bands that tour in Europe, it’s the true garage church in Toulouse! There are a lot of great bands in France, here is a short list that comes to mind: Korto, Foncedalle, Servo, Birds in Row, Edredon Sensible, Psychotics Monks, Chester Remington, Piniol, la Colonie de vacances, Zombie Zombie, Johnny Mafia, Stuffed Foxes…

 

When you’ve toured here in the states in the past, how does the scene here compare to the one in France? Is the vibe and reception different?

We can’t wait to come back and play in the US, the peoples are incredible there! We’re on a long trip, and it’s hard to come and tour in the US in the current climate, so maybe people feel that way and make every show there special! I mean, we love playing anywhere as long as we have access to electricity to plug in, but there’s definitely a connection with the American crowd, and we’re very grateful for that!