Rene Duplantier has been releasing music as Slow Rosary since 2017. Over the course of two albums and several minor works, his music has embodied the sounds of indie folk, psych pop, and lo-fi rock. Lyrically, he has traditionally explored his changing beliefs and evolving relationships through the structure of autobiographical vignettes. In recent years, his gaze has widened to include character studies and place-based observations with an existential bent. 2026 finds Duplantier approaching the release of his third and most grounded album, ALL TROUT.
The first SR album, Refinery (2021), is about how Duplantier gradually stopped practicing Catholicism over the course of a few formative relationships. These heartbreak stories were primarily set in the Gulf Coast and told over indie folk soundscapes; the songs drew comparisons to works by the Decemberists, the Mountain Goats, and Bright Eyes. As Refinery grew into a shared project with frequent collaborator Blake Robicheaux, Duplantier independently formed its B-sides into its twin (or malignant growth), Free WiFi in the Vatican (2022). These songs broke from the explicitly narrative structures in Refinery, veering toward the elliptical forms of inner thoughts and ambiguous memories. Many of them included textual fragments of Biblical stories or hymnals, presented with very little abstraction; they were still stuck in his head from years of going to church and playing in the church band. On release of Free WiFi, SR was compared to less friendly bands, including Arcade Fire, Mount Eerie, and Silver Mt. Zion. To close out that era of the project, Duplantier prepared a third release: Reasonably Far From Residential Areas (2022). On that thing (not quite an album though album length), he used stems from Refinery and a few new recordings of even deeper B-sides to create a more found-footage-esque experience of the same events from Refinery. He released that project unceremoniously on the first album’s anniversary.
In the accompanying description to a 2023 acoustic release, Live (Before & After), Duplantier promised that each of its four tracks would be from a different album: two from things already released and two from future releases. He revisits previous single “John Prine” on the first of those two future releases, ALL TROUT.
ALL TROUT is an album of encounters with individual people, known and historical. Interacting with few people during COVID lockdown, Duplantier found himself thinking and writing about figures across all levels of intimacy, from next-door neighbor (Anthony) to remembered acquaintances (The Man I Met, Sally) to legends of Americana (Prine, Jackie O) to his girlfriend (Melanie) who has since become his spouse. While the songs focus on individuals, the album title and art (in collage, also by the songwriter) seek to encapsulate the similarities of otherwise disparate lives. Duplantier considers ALL TROUT to be particularly human and grounded in the company of his previous work. Lyrically, it is plainly stated, rather than cloaked in melodrama or mystery. Musically, it is not committed to genre or influences. Instead, he worked with what he had (acoustic guitar, very cheap Casio keyboard, hand percussion) and got what he could get out of it.
While producing ALL TROUT, Duplantier’s vision was strongly influenced by a live version of SR that took shape for a tour preceding his 2024 move from New Orleans to Seattle. In an attempt to match the fluidity and lightness of his more frequent solo sets, Duplantier decided to hit the road without a drummer. The band – Blake Robicheaux playing electric guitar, Nick Rosato II playing electric piano, Kate Gauthreaux singing, Duplantier singing and playing acoustic guitar – settled into the songs’ drumless grooves in a way that felt comfortable and lasting. After the tour, Duplantier resumed work on the album without a drum set. This fruitful constraint pushed the songs into a variety of styles including off-kilter trad folk, electronic-infused balladry, and dripping drum-machine-led shoegaze. On that same tour, Duplantier found a new critical collaborator in tour-mate Theresa Romero (Butte, Strange Daisy Records), who provides fundamental and experimental viola and guitar parts on ALL TROUT. When it was time for post-production, another new collaborator, Joe Berg (mix and master engineer, Cherry Creek Music) turned the amalgamation of sounds into one piece, in a higher-fidelity experience of Slow Rosary than ever before.
In the blur of a cross-country move, Duplantier’s two years in Seattle have consisted mostly of preparing ALL TROUT and getting his career on new solid ground (he daylights as a licensed architect). Still, he keeps Slow Rosary at the front of his mind, occasionally performing, usually scheming, and always, always writing.
a few pull quotes:
Refinery captures the spirit of [Duplantier’s] early days, seeped in stark, stripped landscapes, thunderous industry, and Catholic surrealism. Together the band recasts Duplantier’s intimate existential reflections into ambitious soundscapes. - Under the Radar
This is musical escapism at its finest; it’s hand-crafted folk opus after opus, built to transport you somewhere entirely magical. - Austin Town Hall
The songs on “Free WiFi” are lush and captivating, with a bed of sounds lifting up Duplantier’s folk-like lyricism. The album’s lo-fi, home-recorded quality gives it the impression of stepping into a small, pretty church during the music portion of Sunday service — as the band plays songs about so-called Christian presidents calling for waterboarding. - Gambit / NOLA.com
More information is available here. Thank you for listening. - Rene