Slight Layers, Present Unfulfilled album premiere

Generally, when it comes to the various acts and outfits operating under the umbrella of Psychedelic Source Records, the expectation is improvisation. Albums are whittled down from longer jams, presented as naturally as possible, and sometimes that includes things like train sounds and kids running around, etc., as the Hungarian collective of players combine and recombine to make the various groups, or, often, no group at all, just working as Psychedelic Source Records itself, the ‘PSR Band’ being who was able to make it that day after work, life, whathaveyou. Slight Layers is a bit different in that it’s a trio with a seemingly set lineup — not at all the first the label has released — and though their work is exploratory instrumental psych, it doesn’t seem at least for most of their latest offering, Present Unfulfilled, to be entirely improvised.

Two of the included songs, “Delusions” (9:00) and “Twin Leaks” (10:31), featured on the early-2021 live album Initial Visions, as well as on their up-to-now-latest outing, 2022’s Live at Aurora, two of the several covid-era works the project released between 2021-2022, having then gone silent until now. Given the prolific rate of Psychedelic Source Records — it’s been since July, but they’re no strangers to having a full-length collection of jams out at least every month or two — and the somewhat amorphous manner in which the stable of players might realign at any point, names come and go. There are bands, of course, like Pilot Voyager, River Flows Reverse, Band in the Pit, and more recently The Qualitons, but generally one expects them to keep it loose.

That doesn’t necessarily make Slight Layers an anomaly for operating as (I’m pretty sure) they do with the three-piece of guitarist Dávid Nagy, bassist Bence Ambrus (who also ‘heads’ Psychedelic Source Records and records many of the jams), and drummer Máté Varga, but they are an anomaly in that the material seems to be pre-written and rehearsed rather than made up on the spot. The way the title-track twists at the end feels practiced, and at least until the 11-minute closing Hendrixian hairy-fuzz jam “Cracked Hare’s Cheek with Saffron Lark’s Tongue” — which playfully meanders in a way that feels more improvisational — there are moments like that or the Mediterranean twists in Nagy‘s guitar in “Scutigeridæ” and the wah-soaked measured runs in opener “Ivory White” that offer a sense of composition, or at very least a framework in which the songs are taking place.

As of this writing, I don’t know the recording circumstances here, but almost certainly Present Unfulfilled was tracked live in some context or other, be it a show or just a band session, but underlying the reach of their sound into jazzy, bopping grooves and the tightness of their changes — there’s no extra measure while the guitar catches up to the drums or vice versa — across the six tracks and 51 minutes of material, most of it comes across as worked on. That’s fascinating in itself, and though one is left to wonder when amid all the other jamming they do the members of Slight Layers might have time to say ‘this is a Slight Layers rehearsal’ and break out the distorted stoner metal rumble of “Twin Leaks” that on the record marks such a stark turn from the cleaner guitar tones and lead-based melody-making of the first four tracks, the point is it seems to have happened at some point. And yes, “seems” in that sentence is very much meant to cover my ass. I’ll emphasize that I don’t know any of this and am working purely off vibes/the impression from the recordings. That is to say, I do my best, but I’m pretty dumb on the whole.

But the clues are there to be heard, particularly on what I’ll call side A comprising the first four cuts even though they’re about half an hour long and thus too much to actually fit on a vinyl side, before Present Unfulfilled shifts its focus from the plotted-seeming movement of “Scutigeridæ” to the heft of “Twin Leaks.” The feeling of intention. If you told me “Present Unfulfilled” itself was made up on the spot, I’d probably believe you (especially if you were there), but the melody in the guitar line still comes across as thought out as it ascends at about two and a half minutes and then clicks into the distorted wash that prefaces “Twin Leaks” and comprises the midsection of the song before it returns to the clearer resonance to bookend. “Delusions” has its ‘heavy part’ too, growing in urgency and volume as it does with a quick build-up at 3:43, moving into Earthless-style scorch from there, so the procession of the album isn’t entirely divided into classy jazz and trippy heft, but those elements are there.

For fear of looking dumb later, I won’t hazard to predict how much of a band Slight Layers are or will be separate from the stable of Psychedelic Source Records, but there is a distinct chemistry in this material, audible in the later shuffle of “Twin Leaks” or the looser swank of the finale as well as in the the mellower atmosphere in the first half of “Delusions” and the progjazz stylization of “Ivory White,” and the album’s procession from one side to the other of the balance that it casts makes it feel all the more purposeful as something meant to stand on its own, if to do so within that same sphere. Or maybe these guys just know each other really well as players through different collaborations and the instrumental conversation between them is so fluid as a result?

Not knowing either way doesn’t detract from the listening experience, so take that as you will, and know that while there’s a dichotomy in their sound, Slight Layers don’t feel necessarily beholden to a single stylistic ideal in these songs. It’s not a ‘psych’ record in the sense of playing to genre, and whether it’s improvised or not (again, I lean toward not totally in this case), it holds a spirit of feeling its way forward just the same, propelled by the interactions between (again, I think) Nagy, Ambrus and Varga and the knowledge that wherever they might end up is where they were supposed to go all along.

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