Take one of your favourite pictures with you to the local copy shop, put it on the glass of the old xerox machine, and then press the big green button. The machine will light up, make some weird noises, and then present you with something that resembles the original picture, but not quite. A nuance may have become subdued, a certain line a bit fatter, and the overall contrast might have changed. Now take this new picture, replace it with the original on the glass, and make another copy. Compare this copy with the original, then with the copy, and then make a copy of the copied copy. Keep doing this for a while and you'll end up with a number of pictures that look mostly alike, but you'll also notice that each one has a twist all of its own, something that sets it apart from the others, and makes it unique. And somehow, the fine line that separates a copy from an original has become blurred, and the words original and copy have lost their meaning. All that is left is a number of beautiful pictures. That's all that matters.
Sometimes it seems to me as if this is what Ryonkt has done when recording Slow Time. Here, the pictures are replaced with spartan guitar motifs. These are repeated over and over, but each time with a slight twist; an added harmonic, a strum that wasn't there before, a spiky electronic glitch or a sudden wind from a field recording - distorting the picture like a hair on the glass. The end result is a thought provoking and detached yet emotionally intense work of exceptional, sensible beauty.
Peter Stenberg
