“Beautifully balanced, rich, and organic, Slow Spirit sends listeners into that mellow introspection you only hope to see in cinema. This is an absolute must-hear.”
– Ashley Au, The Rooster
Slow Spirit have been fashioning sensitive, folk-tinged indie rock around the soul-searching songwriting of Natalie Bohrn and Eric Roberts since 2013, shortly after they met at music school. There is a deep introspection within the music of Slow Spirit - stemming from 5 years of living through a global pandemic, perched in a cabin at the edge of Riding Mountain National Park.
Curiously following the paths cut by Joni Mitchell, Elliott Smith, and Nick Drake, their acoustic songs carry listeners through existential desires and longings, wrapped-up in fearless instrumentation and arrangement feeling deeply into this ever-changing life.
Slow Spirit first formed after graduated from Brandon University’s jazz studies program. Ignoring the convention of migrating to New York, LA or Toronto to join the ranks of session players or graduate students, they turned to each other and their roots.
Their debut, Unnatured, came in Fall 2017 after 4 years of experimenting, refining, line-up changes and many shows. At 28 minutes, Unnatured covers a remarkable range in its 7 songs. Like the fast and scrappy 3/4 punk-rock, “Human” or the tear-jerking folk ballad, “Oh My Old Friend.” Unnatured captured the band’s live performance as heard through the ears of acclaimed Winnipeg producer-engineer Paul Yee, tracked live off the floor over the course of a weekend.
Unnatured received local love in Winnipeg and was voted one of Winnipeggers’ favourite albums of 2017 in The Uniter 30.
“[Unnatured] strikes a seamless balance between multi-instrumental precision and compositional spontaneity. The band draws from the worlds of jazz, punk, post-rock, pop and singer Natalie Bohrn’s lyrical prose to concoct something all their own.”
- Julijana Capone, Beatroute
“This is the kind of album that unearths hidden beauty with every listen. Genre-defying, spacious and emotional, this is art rock at its finest.”
- Chris Bryson, Stylus
In early 2018 Slow Spirit released Idle. At first a pet project to fill up a botched order of blank cassette tapes. Back to producing at home, the experimenting continued with a re-imagined noise-pop version of the scathing love portrait, Unknown, and a charming acoustic version of the rollicking, Champagne.
Shortly after the release of Idle, Natalie and Eric moved to the edge of Riding Mountain National Park to take a break from a non-stop side person touring schedule. After their first summer of slinging coffees and cleaning toilets, the lake town had shut down for the season and they got to work on another album - Nowhere No One Knows Where To Find You.
The following spring, Slow Spirit took their favourite tracks to Matt Peters and Matt Schellenberg (Deadmen, Royal Canoe) to help wrap up the production and mixing of the record.
Spring of 2020 saw the release of Slow Spirit’s sophomore album, Nowhere No One Knows Where To Find You. Half way through the release the world shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but Slow Spirit continued the release, despite halting all marketing plans and facing an industry that had gone into hibernation…
“It’s a heart expanding feeling. It sounds like healing. It sounds like glittering magic potions and deep breaths and real joy.” - Joel Klaverkamp, Cups N Cakes
“On “Woman”, Bohrn effortlessly displays her dynamic vocal range- sounding like an indie Mariah Carey.” - Miles Theissen, Stylus