Slow Pulp

The dreamy songs of Midwest indie rock outfit Slow Pulp draw on moody shoegaze, hooky grunge, and intimate lo-fi fare. The band made their full-length debut with Moveys in 2020. After the downcast 2021 7″ Deleted Scenes, they put the focus on hooky grunge pop for singles like 2021′s “In Too Deep” and 2023′s “Cramps.” The latter song was included later that year on their second album, Yard, which again navigated ambling, dreamy, and punchy material but with an overall bigger sound.
Guitarist Henry Stoehr, bass player Alexander Leeds, and drummer Theodore Mathews started making music together as friends in the sixth grade, naming their first band from letters in their first names. It wasn’t until high school, when Emily Massey contributed guitar and backing vocals to later incarnation Slow Pulp’s second EP, 2017′s EP2, that an improved vision of the band clicked. They soon made Massey lead singer and took down a debut EP that didn’t involve her.
Now a four-piece, the group worked up the stand-alone tracks “At Home” and “Steel Birds,” which they self-released in 2018 while relocating from Wisconsin to Chicago, Illinois. Written and mostly recorded in a cabin in Michigan in January 2019, the Big Day EP followed in May 2019. Slow Pulp headed out on tour with Alex G later in the year, as they worked on their full-length debut. The project was not without obstacles; material was scrapped, and Massey struggled with her own health problems before returning to Madison to help her parents recover from a car accident. The COVID-19 pandemic soon limited travel. With Stoehr acting as main engineer, producer, and mixer, they were able to complete the album long-distance. (Massey’s father, Michael, contributed an instrumental piano track.) Titled Moveys, it arrived in October 2020 on Winspear. In June 2021, the 7” Deleted Scenes proved to be the band’s final outing with Winspear.
When Slow Pulp came back just three months later, it was with the driving, distortion-fueled “In Too Deep” and the punchier sound they’d returned to on ensuing singles such as “Shadow” (2021) and their Anti- debut, “Cramps” (2023). “Cramps” was included on their more aggressive but still varied second album, Yard, which saw release in September of 2023. The recording was again helmed by Stoehr. ~ Marcy Donelson