Indeed there are parts that sound like what Radiohead’s Amnesiac might have been, if they had done more than the one track with Humphrey Littleton.
The Drift – Memory Drawings
thedriftmusic.com www.myspace.com/trldrift http://www.temporaryresidence.com/
In The Commitments, Jimmy Rabbitte dismissed jazz as ‘musical wanking’. Jazz and onanism have both suffered something of a bad press. So the emergence of the new album by The Drift which utilises that oft-maligned musical genre within their post-rock ambient ambit may be a cause for concern. Amidst some rather dubby sounding post-rock jamming, we hear a doleful horn section or a major use of the high-hat and drum brush. All most worrying.
Thankfully they skilfully manage to avoid the more ersatz end of the jazz spectrum and it is harnessed well enough not to turn into the type of parody that would be introduced by the Fast Show’s jazz club presenter Louis Balfour. For the most part it manages this by not losing focus. In this it is helped by a solidity in the rhythm section and specifically the tightly reigned in drum patterns. This tightness is occasionally sacrificed for somewhat unnecessary musical break-downs, but at least when the music reconfigures it is done with skill and these interludes don’t actually affect the flow of the record as greatly as one might expect.
The most striking elements of the album are when the dense horn sections rub up against some rather tasty electric guitar. Indeed there are parts that sound like what Radiohead’s Amnesiac might have been, if they had done more than the one track with Humphrey Littleton.
Now all this might not convince the Irish soul boy (indeed I’m sure that a more recent version of Mr Rabbitte would dismiss post-rock in similar terms of derision) but there is more than enough going on here for the album to be not just one for the jazz-mag enthusiasts.
Words: Stuart Crosse