Companion

Description

When Justin Morris moved from North Carolina to New York City in 2019, he planned to do the opposite of what most people do when they move to the city: give up on his dream. Since childhood, that dream had been simple: write songs, play in bands, live the indie-rock life. But an experience selling merchandise for one of the era's biggest indie stars shook his convictions. From the vantage point of the tour bus, the daily routine of touring starkly contrasted with the magic of the concerts; encores gave way to a professional reality that showed him the commercial side of an art he had always idealized, and he wondered where the magic had gone. For his idealistic temperament, the gap between the fantasy of success and reality was brutal. “If this is the dream,” he thought, “maybe it’s worth reconsidering.” New York was supposed to be a blank slate, perhaps even where he would learn another trade and leave music behind. Then, less than 24 hours after moving into his sublet in Bushwick, an armed man broke down his bedroom door, wrestled him to the ground, and tied his hands with TV cables. In the days following the robbery, unable to do anything but music, he started writing again. These songs were the beginning of a new project he called Sluice. Sluice is now a four-piece band from Durham, North Carolina, featuring Morris on guitar and vocals, Oliver Child-Lanning on bass and various instruments, Avery Sullivan on drums, and Libby Rodenbough on violin. Today, the band releases Companion, their third album and first with Mtn Laurel Recording Co. It follows Radial Gate (2023), the album Morris recorded after fleeing New York to move in with Child-Lanning (then a complete stranger) in a house found on Craigslist in Hillsborough. He was recording songs at Sylvan Esso's Betty's studio while working as a carpenter. Companion is an album of encounters, a budding love story set against the soaring choruses of Kenny Chesney and Alan Jackson. The "companion" takes various forms: sometimes she has a name (Sara, Bluey, Ol’ Doe Eyes), sometimes she’s a dog that escapes in the morning, sometimes she’s Morris himself catching his reflection in the bathroom mirror and muttering, “My God, I love you!” Sometimes it’s the construction workers, the locals, the band members, the old touring companions who reappear in his life. In his direct, unironic writing style, which Pitchfork once described as a rehabilitation of sincerity, these characters feel real because they are. Music, ever-present after almost slipping away, becomes a companion itself.