Based in Chicago, multi-instrumentalist and composer Derrick Stembridge has taken a step back in time with Facewithin. It sounds like Depeche Mode must have been a big influence on his formative musical years, such is the way he uses rhythm and darker synths to create these 6 tracks (plus 3 remixes).

Twinkling melodies hang in the air over industrial tinged rhythms in ‘Misunderstood’, while the not dissimilar title track adds some distorted android vocals and dials up the murky acid beats that Leftfield turned to on their Rhythm & Stealth album a decade ago. The synth washes and subtle techno hints show a composer bringing together the favourite parts of his record collection.

Stembridge does a nice job on ‘Coming Up For Air’, with its stuttering bass synth and Field-like sweeping synthetic strings. He shows a soundtrack approach to the emotions and mood in his songs and in ‘Virus’ he adds some effect-laden guitar and more Underworld robo-voice, generating some nice rise and fall moments.

‘Facewithin’ is the strongest track on the EP, hence its reworking via 3 remixes. The Drev Remix filters the song through a digital blender, separating and scattering the bytes across the speakers. It resembles digital spray and amps up the industrial aspect of ‘Drifting In Silence’, veering toward Nine Inch Nails territory. The Her Odd First Remix doesn’t head down any new paths but paints it with a 70s analog brush and goes all Kraftwerk on us. The final Anthony Baldino Remix serves up some tasty deconstructed dubstep with razor sharp sliced notes skittering in all directions. The rave buildup mid track works brilliantly, holding everything mile high before rapidly losing altitude back into the blips and beeps.

Facewithin is a good mix of old and new electronica styles, nicely woven together in a fairly dark setting. Fans of Photek, Cabaret Voltaire and Underworld will all find something to appreciate on this solid release.

Chris Familton

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Once again, I give my recommendation to listen to this music wearing headphones, or anywhere acoustically ideal where you can be drenched and surrounded by sound, such as a long drive home in the car, or a ride on your public transportation of choice.  This ambient music, driven by funk and industrial rhythms, deserves active listening, or at least a dance floor setting where the audience is paying fairly close attention to the music.  If you like deep trance, drum and bass, and other similar genres, and artists such as Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, and Aphex Twin, Facewithin will fit in nicely to your DJ queue.  The album has 5 tracks with 3 remixes of the title track, so it’s clearly meant to be danced to, as well as a means of sonic escape from the world outside.  Overall, the album has a somewhat mellow feel, but there are regular upbeat tempos to get you in the groove.

longthenight is a side project by Stembridge, and a self-titled album was released March 31st.  I would say this material has more of a New Age feel, with acoustic piano solos and guitar riffs set to warm electronic sounds.  It was recorded during the same session that Facewithin was, which I would say is pretty demonstrative of Stembridge’s ability to explore a wide musical range.  longwithin might not appeal to all of the same audience that Drifting in Silence does, but it follows the musical tradition of greats such as Brian Eno, Vangelis, Harold Budd, and Tangerine Dream.  The music is definitely more contemplative and has a very meditative quality to it.

Both albums are on the Labile Records label and physical CDs can be purchased from their website here (Facewithin) and here (longthenight).  Music can also be purchased online through iTunes.

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Who? Drifting In Silence are the brainchild of composer/multi-instrumentalist Derrick Stembridge.

Sounds Like? Facewithin mixes together several genres of electronic music, but mostly it draws from ambient and industrial. Stembridge’s tunes are rich with texture, giving his intricate soundscapse tons of delpth.

How is it? It’s good. Fans of The Saint soundtrack will totally dig this.

ROCKS LIKE: FLUKE, APHEX TWIN, ORBITAL

ALTERNATIVE PRESS: Facewithin Review June 2009

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Thankfully, Facewithin is true to its aura-crafting purposes, laying off the tired crutches of clubbing music in favor of new age theater. For what it is and what it aims to do, Facewithin is undoubtedly a success, despite its tendency to stand more as a testament to Stembridge’s talent than any sort of united vision.

Then again, the latter point is somewhat of a relief: though Facewithin often strives to be a concept album, its overall effect is nowhere as ham-handed. There are no numbered pieces or character narratives, nor some sort of dystopian metaphor beneath all the musical current. Facewithin is instead scattershot: it spreads it tentacles in different directions, preferring gray and airy sounds paired with driving percussion as substitution for recurring melodies. It is thus freer than the music of, say, Outputmessage or Mint Royale, who rely on pop strategies to deliver their electronic bliss.

It is a credit to Stembridge, then, that Facewithin remains engaging despite the noticeable lack of melodic coherence. Dealing in a palette of razor tones and other crisp sounds, one would think that Drifting in Silence could never achieve the sonic glory that bursts forth from fellow instrumentalists like Explosions in the Sky, with their bell-like guitarwork and climbing melodies. Yet the musical handicap never truly cripples Facewithin, with pieces such as Coming Up For Air and Misunderstood managing to escape the bittersweet designation of good driving music.

In reality, Facewithin’s greatest weakness is its brevity – consisting of five original tracks and three remixes, many listeners may wish for Stembridge to take a breath and expand beyond the rather quick half-hour running time. The cinematic flair is therefore a tad clipped, though it does nothing to drown Stembridge’s other talents. For a self-described symphonic project, Drifting in Silence remains unnaturally disciplined and rarely contrived – a welcome, if unexpected, pleasure.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

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I love when music can inspire creativity, and listening to Facewithin will do that.  I can’t help but picture the scenes that go along with the tracks, making the album a full experience instead of just songs.

Facewithin will be released by Labile Records in April, and until then you can read more about Drifting in Silence on the band’s MySpace page here: www.myspace.com/driftinginsilence

Or on the Drifting in Silence website here: Drifting in Silence

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Stembridge’s influences are fairly obvious, the title track lives and breathes Apex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works, although the vocoded vocals – used often throughout the album, place the track within a more traditional, song-based format. However, the other half of Stembridge is unmistakeably provoked by the EBM genre, Unknown Divide surprises for its aggressive percussion and doom-laden synth pads, which verge on industrial-sounding at times, but seem a little out of place in the overall context of the album, even if Fallto switches between reverb-lashed ethereal landscapes and clubby EBM almost continuously.

Chameleon, with its incomprehensible vocoded vocals gliding ruefully over melodic keyboards, jagged mechanical pulses and toughened beats, again leans strongly towards the old-fashioned EBM genre. Two remixes of the track are provided, by Drev and 3l3tronic’s more contemporary IDM remix.

Personally, I find this Drifting In Silence project more consumable when it swings towards the ambient/IDM side, then you can sit back and dissect Stembridge’s complex arrangement of multiple synthesiser passages. The anthemic Closure is perhaps the best proof that a full-on ambient/ethereal album would have been more palatable than Fallto’s gregarious mixture of styles. When Stembridge chooses dense layers and airy soundscapes, Fallto sounds relevant and contemporary, when it leans towards EBM it quickly becomes passé.

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Drifting in Silence is featured in the May 2008 issue of Electronic Musician via the Soundtrack of the Month section. “Unexpected yet complementary timbres come together, melting the boundaries between all genres.”

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