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MusicWorks Magazine:
Composing music remains an intuitive process for Paterson. “I leave room for accidents to shape what I’m doing,” he says. “I’ve taught myself to not acknowledge things that happen [when I play] as mistakes and to just think of them as part of the process. When the record jumps by accident, I hear something in there. I try to follow that feeling—to let the sounds guide what’s going to happen.” |
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The Whole Note Magazine:
"Listening to the music of Toronto turntablist Cheldon Paterson, the first thing that comes to mind is a sense of space. Not space as something “out there” and abstract, but space as something tangible – the sounds of actual places, soundscapes and environments, with suggestions of how we as people might fit within them. Paterson – who performs as SlowPitchSound – characterizes his approach as “sci-fi turntablism”: integrating scratching with heavily a.. [more] |
photo by: Michelle Siu
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The Glode and Mail:
Putting a new spin on Bach with Toronto DJ SlowPitchSound “I slow things down,” Paterson told me during a break. “It’s then you begin to hear things you’d never hear in normal time. Yes, I’m picking out a particular sound but I’m getting at something that is inside that sound. I’m pulling it out. All of a sudden it’s transformed into a new thing.” [more] |
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EXCLAIM! Show review: In a set of dream sequences dotted with passing references to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Matrix, SlowPitchSound slipped a found spoken sample over a starry, beat-chasing landscape and served up a slice of meta-commentary, pulling listeners further down the rabbit hole of his process.
Working with turntable, mixer, controller, KP3 Kaoss Pad and laptop, the producer otherwise known as Cheldon Paterson took unwanted, dusty records too arcane for the dollar bin and stretched them into slowed galaxies of ambient textures, occasionally spinning into warp speed with rocket-fuelled rhythms, a practice he calls sci-fi turntablism. [more] |
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EXCLAIM! Feature: Slow. Things. Down. This is the motto and method of Toronto producer Cheldon Paterson, aka SlowPitchSound. Listeners of his previous releases, like Emoralis and THK SKN, will know that Paterson has a unique take on scratching, where dusty vinyl is used to create sprawling ambient scenery. This isn't a million miles away from the most recent work of Kid Koala — an artist who, along with DJ Krush, has had a big influence on Paterson — but SlowPitchSound has been honing this particular skill for years. [more]
"I try not to do the typical stuff, so I don't really use soul and funk that was heavily sampled in hip-hop," |
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ATTN:Magazine Interview:
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GreyOwl Point: As I listened to THK SKN, the newest cinematic sci-fi excursion from turntablist SlowPitchSound, I felt like my imagination got a little boost, as I envisioned all the far out creatures slithering and creeping through its ambient landscapes. The record opens in the first light of an otherworldly dawn, as a computerized voice prepares you for your imminent journey. Then a heavy, plodding beat drops in, like the footsteps of a crash-landed astronaut trudging through the dunes of a harsh desert world.... [more]
"Act Two immediately has a more mechanical feel, like it’s a recording from the inside of a droid factory. Yet a recurrent theme here is the persistence of nature, whether it’s gently babbling water, or the chirping of bird during a sudden power outage." |
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Exclaim!: On his latest record, THK SKN, his combination of hip-hop, ambient and musique concrète takes us on a heady but engaging journey through alien landscapes and creepy dance floors. Paterson neatly avoids the generic pitfalls of trip-hop by eschewing conventional beats for the most part, in favour of a few minutes of throbbing, bass drum-led grooves. The ethereal textures are there, but instead of structured chord changes and new age-y pads, they come from syrupy, pitched-down samples that create a melting feeling... [more]
"To marry such a range in sounds smoothly is no small feat, but SlowPitchSound's skill-set incorporate the playfulness of jazz and the world-building of science fiction." |
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NUMUS: Looking ahead to the Waterloo show, Chel described Rabbit Hole as a new work, developed over the past year. “It’s a different model for me. Before, I was always improvising every gig. Fully improvised. And then I came to this realization: let me grab some of the favourites and put some time into those and take it to another level. It’s cool now having that guide with Rabbit Hole and still being able to improvise in and out of that.”
I asked Chel what he would say to invite the Waterloo Region audience to Rabbit Hole: “It’s an inspiring journey. Our whole purpose when creating this was to take you to another place, to show you a different type of performance. It’s a trip to see.” [more] "I like collecting sounds and arranging them in different ways, live. If it goes to genre, then it’s really about creating scenes. I’m thinking of a movie every time I make the music." photo and article by: Darin White |
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THUMP. "Torontonian SlowPitchSound, a.k.a. Cheldon Paterson, takes this mislaid skill set and carves a new pathway that most scratch DJs don't even consider. A curiosity to find new sounds pushes him in turntable experimentation and live improvisation. The results are an otherworldly tumble down the rabbit hole of downtempo instrumental hip-hop..." [more]
"SlowPitchSound Scratches Past the Surface with His Own Brand of Turntablism" |
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Exclaim.ca: "In complete, hushed silence and utter darkness, SlowPitch (aka Toronto's Cheldon Paterson) stepped back and composed himself for a moment before stepping forward to his table of gear for his second consecutive MUTEK performance. A spoken sample talking about snails chimed out over the top of fragile ambience in what sounded like an homage to The Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds": "Snails are simply just boring... or maybe you're fascinated by snails," the voice could be heard saying. Paterson placed the stylus on the label of a slab of vinyl and pulled the record dragging the needle over the paper, creating a sinister groaning sound. Organic-sounding beats drifted in from time to time, then falling back to a dark ambience filled with field samples of birds tweeting and cars passing by..." [more]
"Paterson has long shown mastery of the decks and electronics, but this performance also demonstrated mastery of building a compelling set arc and a fully immersive experience." |
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BlogTO: "Paterson doesn't ever just press play on his records, and sometimes there's no record on the turntable at all. With the EQ high, he'll work with the vibration of the table itself to create beats, or (don't let your parents read this) touching the needle-head itself to create bass sounds which lend themselves to the cinematic narratives he imagines." [more]
"Paterson doesn't ever just press play on his records, and sometimes there's no record on the turntable at all." |
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Chart Attack: "Uncharted is our weekly showcase of rising artists. This week, Jon Pappo profiles scifi experimental DJ SlowPitch.
... How do you make a statement without saying anything? Scratches hiss pop clicks the improvisation of the flicking of switches of looping and sampling and echoing of cold landscapes. Technology as a tool as an instrument as a sound. Sounds as a voice as a theme as an idea. Symposium of the present and the future lapsing and sliding into itself..." [more] |
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Exclaim: "Emoralis makes for an otherworldly listen. Yet, the dreamy soundscapes and off-kilter beats never drift too far into space; they're gently tugged back by SlowPitch's subtle scratching, which glues all the wayward elements together beautifully." [more]
"Interestingly, the usual signifiers of turntablism don't plainly assert themselves until the fourth track, “Lo - Fi - Sci,” where scratching and other manipulations convert disembodied voices and assorted other sounds into sonic wooze. Turntable-based effects surface even more dramatically during “Dream Time In Cryosleep” when a speaker's repeated “I consider myself a time traveler, actually” utterance turns into silly putty in Paterson's hands." [Textura] |
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The Upstate Soundscape: "Since experimental turntabilsm’s inception with John Cage’s “Imaginary Landscape No. 1” in 1939 most turntablism of this nature has been dominated by avant-garde artists who adopted the turntable and/or records as instruments because of their ability to provide unconventional and aesthetically intriguing sounds. Toronto’s SlowPitch, on the other hand, sounds instead like an actual DJ that has been schooled in traditional turntablism and who has now progressed naturally into experimental territory after mastering the tools of the disc jockey’s trade." [The Upstate Soundscape]
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Music Works Magazine: On a rainy April evening in Toronto, in the darkened hush of historic St. Anne’s Anglican Church, the first frame of the 2013 Images Festival appear—a live black-and-white projection of the deft hands of turntable artist SlowPitch. As the frames progress, you can literally hear and see a needle drop. Then comes a hard tectonic crackle, gradually layered with languid beats, earthy drones, and rumbling loops that ooze towards the audience as the screen fills with shimmering colour-drenched mirrored images of common garden snails in motion. [more]
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Toronto Star: Toronto turntablist and abstract-electronic auteur Cheldon “SlowPitch” Paterson generously gifted the Internet with a “four-part imaginary film score” entitled Ghost Fossil that’s been thoroughly doing my head in since delivery.
Twenty minutes immersed in this woozy, hallucinogenic broth of deconstructionist hip-hop oomph, ominous future-dub drones and disorienting down-tempo fractures — imagine the more out-there extremities of 1990s Bristol “trip-hop” melding with the crackling weirdness of Pole or Basic Channel back in the day — are enough to fill you with fear at the sort of permanent damage a full-length SlowPitch album might do. It’s the good kind of fear, though, the kind that leaves you shaken but declaring, “Bring it on. I want more.” Available as a free download at slowpitch.bandcamp.com or, “for a small fee,” as a limited edition, hand-painted, recycled cassette tape with an extra B-side. |
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Wavelength: Cheldon Paterson has performed under a number of monikers and as one half of turntable duo iNSiDEaMiND. He’s made regular appearances at Wavelength events over the years and has offered us a helping hand behind the scenes on many occasions. Our own Kevin Parnell caught up with Cheldon to talk about his career so far and
his most recent project, SlowPitch. [more] |