Dedications

A distributary of the folk futurist group Shovel Dance Collective, Sullows are an improvising outfit consisting of Jacken Elswyth, Daniel S. Evans and Joshua Barfoot. Their latest tape, Dedications, showcases their fitful, fluttering take on folk across two 18-minute pieces. The dedications in question are to pop pioneers Brian Wilson and Sly Stone. Both Wilson and Stone passed away in the same week in June 2025, nearly two years after the trio recorded this work at London’s Cafe OTO. Wilson’s homage is a series of sputtering movements, plucked out on banjo and guitar interspersed with spurts of Barfoot’s frenetic percussion – moving from soft melodies to a jumble of frenzied rhythms and back again. Stone’s tribute is tighter but coarser, held up by a metalic drone and embellished with delicate dulcet trills. Across the record, the group’s fluency with their instruments and each other keeps the trialogue unexpected, dynamic and yet consistent, each going wherever the others choose to lead.