Alternative indie act 2 Slices maintains a local cult following enamored with its particular synth-pop tonic for the nerves.
“It doesn’t make any sense, but you get that bug from playing live and recordings songs — hearing your baby in its full entirety just brings a certain joy to you, like a deep love that doesn’t go away,” said vocalist/guitarist Danny Martin, who started recording under the moniker 2 Slices several years ago.
In 2016, Martin joined forces with Brandon Fudge also known as DJ Lazer Cat, and 2 Slices morphed into a duo act. The two met in the Myrtle Beach music scene years previously when Martin was playing with a psych rock band called Octopus Jones.
2 Slice’s debut 2017 album Best Believe is an amalgam of off-kilter electro-pop rock full of ’80s feel-good weirdness. Then bassist Brett Nash and drummer Nic Jenkins joined the act’s ranks to deliver more synth-sprawled dream rock on the act’s 2020 sophomore record Vision of 2.
Getting introspective
A third album is currently in the works, Martin told the Charleston City Paper, and it’s an exploration of psychedelic rock.
2 Slices dropped a new single and accompanying music video Aug. 11 called “Figure 8” that captures the band’s current iteration as a four-piece with Charleston drummer Justice Wolfe-Jones.
The music video is a cut-paste shuffle of scenes with varying perspectives and kaleidoscopes of color, and its lighthearted tone is a good translation of the song’s danceable pop sensibility.
The new song “Figure 8” is about staying in the present and not dwelling on the past, Martin said. He sings: “What’s done is done / no one more chance / What should have been / has already begun / I’ve seen a vision / a figure eight / A message time can not replay.”
“Figure 8” doesn’t stray from distortion but takes more of a straightforward pop rock approach in comparison to other bangers from 2 Slices.
For this particular track, Martin arranged the song in his home studio with homemade beats and a drum loop Jenkins sent him before tying it all together with the band at the Charleston recording studio The Space. Charleston musician Corey Campbell of alt-pop act Babe Club mixed the song and filmed and edited the music video.
Martin said he had a lot of time to think inward over the past couple of years as he wrote the newest batch of 2 Slices’ songs, which incorporate more guitar than the previous record.
“I was influenced by Brett and his band Secret Guest because I joined that band, and I was like, ‘Hey, I want to get back to playing guitar,’ ” Martin said. “I wanted to mash the psych-rock with the electronic rock. And it was a very existential period for me. I was into philosophy and stuff.
“My last album was like a ‘breakup dance on the dance floor’ kind of album. And this one’s definitely more introspective. I’m asking a lot of questions, deep questions,” he said. “It’s heavier subject matter with heavier guitars — less bright, twinkling synths.”
Although the guitar is more front-and-center on the coming album, that’s not to say 2 Slices won’t revert to its old synth-soaked ways.
“I’m getting back into electronic music again,” Martin said, “so I think the next album is going to have no guitar on it.”
Love Best of Charleston? Help the Charleston City Paper keep Best of Charleston going every year with a donation. Or sign up to become a member of the Charleston City Paper club.