"... so as to not be a bunch of droning, long-haired nerdlingers."

If you're looking for your new favourite Stars of the Lid, we've found it. Slow Six does operatic post-rock a la those Texan heroes, Red Sparowes, but with more swirling layers and more beautiful mess. Constant comparisons are devaluing, sure, but who cares when the comparisons are so good? Allana Mayer got an inspiringly fast response from ringleader Christopher Tignor about their modes of production and performance.

Who are all of you and how'd you get into this business of music creating?

Orphans in the same cola mine; we developed these songs to synchronize pick-axes after some regrettable early incidents.

And why did you all choose this distinctive type of music?

Steve noticed that when certain hammers were struck together they sounded consonant and others dissonant. Turns out it was in the ratios of their respective weights. Ben got that one. When Rob and I hit our hammers at once it almost sounded like they were singing together: one high, one low. We called that an octave and worked out the rest of the math and got ourselves a scale which we hastily equal tempered so as to not be a bunch of droning, long-haired nerdlingers. Then Theo invented string instruments and electricity and there she was.

For the tech-heads out there, could you explain some of your programs, your "home-grown software instruments?"

I build software programs you play like musical instruments and whose sound comes from processing the other musicians' sounds. Using a keyboard or other midi controllers, I take in and transform their material in various ways. For example, I might use a midi keyboard to capture samples from a guitar pattern with my left hand and then play them back in different rhythmic combinations with the other, while simultaneously filtering the sound with a pedal. For our newer stuff I've mostly just been playing the ole violin though.

How does the songwriting process work for music such as yours? Lots of illicit drugs, for sure, but I also imagine it takes a lot of time to pin down things that work.

For our newer stuff I bring in anything from scores, parts, sounds, metaphors, oral traditions, overheard anecdotes I crib as my own insights and anything else I find, and then we arrange it all as a team. So everybody's contributing throughout the thing and we make a point to try out everything that comes to us. I go back and forth writing and rewriting the material as rehearsals progress until finally the song reveals itself and we're able to get in a hook and reel her in.

Whose idea was it to make that "Echolalic" video on your website? The way it explains what the musicians are doing and how some of your programs work is really interesting.

This guy was making a documentary on the incomparable WFMU radio station and luckily, we were just in that day playing a live set on Irene Trudel's show. The whole tune is over 14 minutes, so we pulled out a clip that sounded and looked cool and it seemed necessary to add some text explaining what on Earth I was doing while Steve was playing guitar. It's actually a pretty good document of how the thing works for the super-nerds like me out there.

I'm curious as to how shows in classical settings, with other classical performers on the bill, work out, and how the audience responds.

Yes, don't get me started. We've really done very few shows in that world. That world is one you sort of have to be educated and raised within. It's rooted in the music school tradition which I didn't go through until my now-ongoing doctoral work, so I get to see it a bit from the inside as an outsider. Despite never playing the music you'd expect to find there, Slow Six was born in raised in rock clubs like any other ticket-selling, drink-peddling band and we've been interlopers ever since no matter who we play for. A lot of indie kids are looking for a kind of experimental street-cred and a lot of the classical world is looking to tout their popular music influences – their version of street-cred. To that extent we've got fans on both sides. How people respond to Sl6w often seems to say more about how they appreciate music more than anything else.

Do you feel that being positioned between the classical and popular worlds helps or hinders your work?

The music industry doesn't have any effect on our work. We started this in my loft before people knew what we were up to and we're still at it in the same loft. We're into something that is in many ways quite new and the industry is beginning to catch up with what our fans have known for some time. I don't know of any other bands that have reached into both the modern classical and indie worlds as evenly and deeply as we have. We're proud to be this sort of anomaly.

How often and how deep does Slow Six like to get into performance art, visuals, and that kind of multidisciplinary territory? Do you always make provisions for a visual aspect to your shows?

If a venue can adequately support video, including [providing] the funds for us to get our video artist there, we always do video. The purpose of the video is to make the inherent visual experience of a live show as compelling as possible and compatible with our music. Almost all of our shows in NYC have used video art but there are a lot of places where it doesn't make sense – it doesn't look good or there's not enough time to set up and do it right so we just roll without it. So we usually tour without video. The music is still the core of the experience from which all things Six spring forth.

Do you work with other types of artists as well?

We did a big collabo with our friends Anemone Dance Theater at The Joyce SoHo a couple years back. They're an incredible modern dance troupe inspired by the Japanese post-war Butoh movement. We did a three-day run at the Joyce that came out of a week residency where we built the whole program of dance, video, and music together from near scratch. These kinds of projects are some of the most gratifying for us as they allow the music to live in a context beyond the club or concert music setting we're so accustomed to.

By Allana Mayer