The Drift

The Drift   “Gardening, Not Architecture” (Four Tet remix)

from Ceiling Sky  (Temporary Residence Ltd.)

jazzbient excursions // Out Nov. 6

(orig. Pub. early Nov. 2007)

It would be so easy for The Drift to trail one beautiful dead end after another, the usual ambient amnesia, but they never stop delving into and illuminating the mutable emotional core of their music. For instance, on  “For Grace and Stars,” Jeff Jacobs’ trumpet and flugelhorn (multi-tracked, or with the notes of one interspersed with the other, maybe) can brush the cloudy canyon steps of Safa Shokrai’s upright bass, then hang on the twanging filaments of Danny Grody’s guitar, before curving between Rich Douthit’s cymbal and snare. You could also say the horn player brings solace, and the four brothers pass it around behind the hymnbooks, but don’t drop the coffin during the hillside ceremony, as the wind rewinds the greenery. Or something like that: there’s always an implied subtext, though these musical shapes can’t be too easily traced. (Dang, if only they had lyrics---so much easier for us quotation-minded reviewers on the poprock side.)

The Drift may have had to learn their lesson about sweet stasis, since the press sheet acknowledges that Ceiling Sky’s openers, “Streets” and “Nouzomi,” previously available only as single tracks, raised great expectations, which the debut album, Noumena, didn’t entirely fulfill. Seems like about half of it, about 28 minutes, is good to great, while the other half is too reverent about its process, too fascinated with the foreplay. (Guitarist Grody’s previous group, Tarentel, has always provided similar rewards and frustrations.) That’s the standard domestic CD version of Noumena, which would have done well to include “Noumena,” and “For Grace and Stars,” as did the vinyl edition and Japanese import disc. But they’re here, and so are two rare remixes of nuggety Noumena tracks: Sybarite’s Xian Hawkins cruises through “Invisible Cities,” and Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden, fresh from shuffling and dealing the flutter and flotation of Sunburned Hand Of  The Man’s Fire Escape, polishes and spins The Drift’s dubwise lens and sense of clarity beyond (or at least between) categories, on “Gardening, Not Architecture.” Staccato, pouncing sounds, usually associated with drum solos, turn out to be accompaniment, then again, they’re feeding cues and impulses (“comping,” right?) to backwards ripples of guitar, or bowed cymbals, or bowed bass, or all of the above. Who cares, it works. Everybody circles a glitch-sun for a while, but not too long, and arms are raised, with chirpy critters running up and down them, as vibrations of anticipation make a happy now.