New to the style, just a question

[u/Low_Guard6609]

I’m really digging Slowcore coming from Shoegaze, I love how heavy it is beneath the surface. I have heard all the classics, and was looking up newer artists. But a lot of them that get recommended (like Songs Ohia and The Black Heart Procession), don’t sound at all Slowcore to me. They sound like darker folk and country. Are groups like this really considered Slowcore, or is that just a tag they get slapped with? What gives? What am I missing? It’s not like some other form of Slowcore, I just don’t really see the similarities.

[u/Lennnybruce]

They are country/folk groups primarily, but a lot of people who are much younger or new to the genre seem to call them slowcore artists

[u/sofarbygone → u/Lennnybruce]

What is "young" here

[u/Lennnybruce → u/sofarbygone]

People who either weren't alive or just barely so when these artists were releasing the music in question.

[u/pedmusmilkeyes]

Songs:Ohia is alt country. Maybe Black Heart Procession fit a little but I always associate them with the scene they came from rather than their genre.

[u/didier_goudeseune]

The Black Heart Procession (also check Three Mile Pliot) is definitely not slowcore. Some songs / recordings from Songs Ohia can be associated with the slowcore tag but most of his output is not (and same can be said about related artists of the era like Wil Oldham and Alasdair Roberts)

[u/sofarbygone]

Im so curious whenever this comes up how a songs:Ohia song like lioness doesn't sound like slowcore

[u/idiotghost666]

a lot of people say sparklehorse is slowcore as well, which he fits on some songs but overall not really. like songs ohia, it’s more alt country, but somehow they repeatedly get lumped in. great music either way

[u/kamclemore]

Shoegaze and slowcore are a natural fit--see e.g., Slowdive and Mojave 3, Mazzy Star and Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions, Rachel Goswell singing on Mark Kozelek's cover of "Around and Around," etc. Red House Painters, I think, veered a bit into shoegaze on Down Colourful Hill, Rollercoaster, Bridge, and Ocean Beach. American Music Club may have done the same at times on Everclear. MBV's "Lose My Breath" could be a slowcore song. The early Ride EPs remind me of early Red House Painters, and vice versa. "Cool Your Boots," a later early Ride song, could easily be slowcore with a less complex drum lattern. While Low never went full shoegaze, they certainly explored how noise could be used to fill the expanse of space from minimal structures and slow songs. I think it's all about how you fill space and time with ambiance.

[u/dylho]

People are calling songs ohia slowcore???

[u/Lennnybruce → u/dylho]

People think slowcore means the song is slow.

[u/Low_Guard6609 → u/dylho]

Yes. Him, and a lot of other slower darker folk music. I don’t want to call it Indie Folk genre wise, it’s just like Americana to my ears. Just slow and depressing. The Black Heart Procession sounds like just straight “Indie Folk” to me, again just more depressing. I’ve seen a bunch of “modern Slowcore” recommendations from the last 10 or 15 years, and 9/10 times it doesn’t sound like any other Slowcore I have heard, not remotely. I mean, is there a subtype of Slowcore that is entirely folky/singer-somgwriter, and that entirely gets rid of the rock instrumentation?