By Grant Kelly, Contributor

[Standing on the Corner; 2024]

Rating: 7/10

“Slow Death” is the newest single from the enigmatic New York music collective Standing on the Corner, having released less than a week after their cryptic single,  “Ghost Friend 6★”. The group’s work over the years has covered a wide array of influences including jazz fusion, soul, hip hop and indie electronic music, with a signature psychedelic DIY production style that gives their songs a uniquely hypnotic appeal regardless of the genre they’re occupying at a given moment. 

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This newest single from the group is no less alluring. Released as a downloadable file tucked away in the corner of the band’s website, “Slow Death” is a bizarre cover of The Beach Boys’ “A Day in the Life of a Tree”, off their 1971 album Surf’s Up. While a somewhat unexpected song choice for the group, this isn’t the first time they’ve reshaped a decades-old pop song into something new. The track “BNS” off the group’s 2016 self-titled album is a twisted and slow-paced rendition of the jazz standard “Body and Soul” that sees the band turning the familiar into the surreal. 

Similarly, “Slow Death” transforms the elegant, folksy balladry of the original into something much more ominous through the use of noisy electronics and disorienting effects. While the original song certainly has an air of sadness to its lyrics, singer Gio Escobar’s garbled vocals turn its tone from wistful to paranoid, as if to imply a more tangible threat looming over the narrator than the mere passage of time. 

“Slow Death” is a refreshing new release from Standing on the Corner, and one that displays their skill for creating unsettling music with an uncanny veneer of innocence. 

Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-RjWA4DmiE