Put Slightest Clue on your speed dial

by V. S. Wells on December 13th, 2023 at 9:45 AM

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In November, telephone poles around Vancouver suddenly started carrying cryptic white missives. “Call to hear a local band,” read the posters, followed by a set of YVR digits: 778-627-2171. It’s like They Might Be Giants’ Dial-A-Song, reimagined for a scrappy quartet in the 604.

On the other end of the line, an automated voice asks you to press 1 to hear a new song from Vancouver indie group Slightest Clue. Doing so rewards you with the sultry, jazzy opening licks of the band’s latest single, “When You Wake Up”. Part smokey-room sway and part fuzzy garage rock that seems to rise and fall like someone’s adjusting the volume knob, the track’s held together by bassist Hannah Kruse’s intimately murmured vocals imploring the listener to “call me when you wake up.”

“The phone line was kind of my baby,” says Kruse, who brings some business-minded savvy to the band’s artistic project. “It goes the extra mile in having the marketing really tell the story of the song.”

The guerilla marketing tactics speak to the jangly four-piece’s DIY ethos. Slightest Clue's first EP, 2022’s Twin Silver, was entirely self-recorded and self-produced: Kruse on bass and trading off vocal duties with lead singer and rhythm guitarist Malcolm McLaren, joined by McLaren’s long-time friend Sean Ries on lead guitar, and Nick Sciarretta behind the kit.

Originally forming in 2019, the band figured out its current iteration in 2021 when Sciarretta was added on drums. That was during the haze of continuing Covid uncertainty; the four became each other’s first bubble of human contact outside of their households, meeting several times a week for extended jam sessions to make sure they could hit the ground running once shows opened back up.

Since then, the quad has made a name for themselves in the local indie music scene, playing gigs across the city from Red Gate to the Rickshaw, as well as flying out to Toronto as part of an NXNE emerging music showcase earlier this year.

Ries, who’s made his way through a dozen different bands and currently also plays in The Aubreys, says the group’s close-knit friendship really helped cement his decision to stick around.

“I like hanging out with them, outside of just band practice and playing shows,” he says. “In other cases it’s been more business… there wasn’t a lot of personalization between everybody.”

Still, Sciarretta hastens to add it’s not all fun and games.

“My first band was with my three best friends, however there was nowhere near the level of commitment and hard work we see in this band,” he elaborates. “There needs to be mutual talent, and hard work.”

The members of Slightest Clue come from diverse musical backgrounds—McLaren swears by postpunk, while former choir kid Kruse embraces pop—but they find the overlapping common ground between their disparate interests to be especially fruitful territory.

“It’s kind of become our superpower,” McLaren says. “I think it makes for a more unique piece of art at the end of the day, like a patchwork quilt, where you just get lots of different colours and patterns and everybody is bringing their own personalities.”

Take “Just Fine”, a stand-out on Twin Silver that’s also Kruse-led. The deceptively simple hook of, “Spend the night infected by the sound/Sound, the sound, the sound, the sound” draws you into a glorious k-hole of twangy bass mixed with some Pixies-esque ethereality. Meanwhile, recent single “Suit Uptight!” sees McLaren embracing throwback Talking Heads-style vocals, all angular rhythmic verses that are cut loose for the chorus.

The variety of sources carries through the band’s collaborative approach to songwriting. McLaren loves “unorthodox chord progressions,” which might be the most common through-line in the band’s music: creating something a little more complex and savoury than first impressions may suggest.

Ries’ hooks, similarly, are ever-present, often mixing distortion or unusual techniques to sound less like a guitar. Fellow EP track “Zipper” is urgent and thrumming, emphasized by the guitar’s siren-like wail. And record closer “Breathe Slow” has an extended psych-y outro borne from Sciarretta’s wild jam-session drumming.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh, that’s where this needs to go. We just need to join him,’” McLaren says. “We gotta figure out how to get there to match that energy.”

“Had I known how many times we would play that song,” Sciarretta interjects, “I wouldn’t have made that outro so fucking long.”

Those experiments are bound to repeat on the band’s next EP, Carousel, slated to come out February 9, with lead single “Why Can’t I Call You?” set to drop on January 11. That song is already a staple of their live output, played side-by-side with “When You Wake Up”.

And, given the apt name, it’s going to be present on the answerphone, too. Call it when you wake up.