CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Slow Note from a Sinking Ship

album by Portastatic

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 31, 2025
Entity authorityQ7542057 ↗
Source-derived summary

Slow Note from a Sinking Ship is Portastatic's second studio album. It was released on Merge Records on June 20, 1995.

The album was recorded at Duck Kee Studios by Jerry Kee, except "Skinny Glasses Girl", "The Angels of Sleep", "Spooky", "Running Water" and "Isn't That The Way", which were recorded by Mac McCaughan on a Tascam 424 4-Track cassette recorder "with little or no engineering involved."

The CD and vinyl versions of the album had different track listings and running orders. "Spooky" and the hidden track appear on the CD only. "Your Own Cloud" appears on the LP only.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Slow Note from a Sinking Ship” as album by Portastatic. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1995—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1995. The account is most persuasive where Slow, Note and Sinking can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as album by Portastatic. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7542057. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Slow Note from a Sinking Ship”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Slow Note from a Sinking Ship primary sources, Slow Note from a Sinking Ship archive and Slow research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Slow Note from a Sinking Ship”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Slow Note from a Sinking Ship” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.