Alex Asher Debuts New Project “Slow Motion”

Award-winning trombonist, producer, and bandleader Alex Asher has just released the self-titled debut album Slow Motion, on June 26.

Asher has been active in the jazz and independent music scene of Brooklyn and has played and performed in various bands like People’s Champs and Los Cumpleaños. In an earlier period of his career, Asher and his horn band, The Superpower Horns, collaborated to write and produce arrangements for Beyoncé’s album 4, including the Grammy winning song “Love on Top.”

Slow Motion reveals another aspect of Asher’s musical identity by fusing his experience with jazz performance and his love for production. This project emerged during the pandemic when Asher performed at Wild Birds, Brooklyn, on a weekly residency basis.

Like a DJ, I went deep into my record collection and curated a set of songs for everyone living in New York City in 2020.

Alex Asher

The idea was eventually developed into a complete album recorded at Figure 8 Recording featuring Joel Mateo on drums, Michael LaValle on bass, Julia Chen on piano, co-producer and engineer Chris Botta, and synthesizer programming by Max Zooi.

With eight songs, Slow Motion mixes trombone, synthesizer layers, tropical beats, and R&B influences with a production approach that is contemporary yet based in jazz. Slow Motion works best when individual tracks are given room to develop their own identity.

One of the standout tracks on this album is definitely “Radiance,” where at first everything is in a slightly restricted mode, but then gradually opens up into a new, uplifting sound and a rhythm.

“Sun Shower” takes on a lighter mood and creates one of the album’s warmest moments. Based on melodic sounds, as well as a relaxed tempo, the song is light and dream like in its sound while still managing to maintain the album’s introspective nature. It is a song that feels easy to listen to.

The emotional centerpiece of the album comes with “Finlandia,” Asher’s adaption of the hymn from Jean Sibelius’ symphonic tone poem. Asher explained that this was one of the songs that held great significance to him in terms of his Finnish roots as this song would be played at events such as weddings and funerals. He had discovered the rhythm during a walk around a frozen lake on his meditation retreat. This provides another layer to the listening experience and helps account for why the song is reflective and intimate.

In celebration of the release of Slow Motion, Alex Asher will preform the new album at LunÀtico, Brooklyn on June 29th.