Drifting in Silence ‘face within’ (Labile). Press release describes the sounds within as -
‘shimmering ambience’s driven by groove rhythms and punctuated by instrumental riffs and snatches of concrete sounds’.
Now keep that thought in mind.
Second full length from Derrick Stembridge (for it is he who is Drifting in Silence) following his debuting 2007 opus ‘Chameleon’ which incidentally we disappointingly missed here. And we here are not kidding when we note our disappointment because if this 5 track set (with an additional three guest remixes) is anything to judge by then it seems we missed out on a treat.
Based in Chicago, Drifting in Silence does indeed sculpture a compelling dream weaving ambient canvas and ’face within’ is indeed by our reckoning a release best enjoyed and savoured alone plugged into a set of headphones, the volume racked to maximum and with eyes closed so that you can view those strangely dissipating shapes that form behind the eyelids and imagine them as cosmically strewn night lights illuminating celestial voids with the sounds piping into your psyche acting as a colourfully vivid backdrop for the flight in hand.
If there’s any complaint to be made about this set its just a small one because I won’t bother having you believe that Mr Stembridge pushes the ambient envelope in any given direction because – he doesn’t.
Instead this brand of dark ambience is tweaked and twisted upon a framing of mid 80’s euro disko accents (the opening salvo ‘forever’ lending itself to detectable elements of Front 242) and industrial dialects all abridged and set upon a gothically grand wide screen mounting. Mood wise its all at once dreamy and detached, at times bleakly beautifully at others clinically sparse and ominously sterile, amid the star crossed liquid like loosely connected techno textures leviathan like swathes swirl and weave almost as though navigating some given deep space trajectory (especially on the lonesome motorik beat laced epically tear stained and frosted overtures of the stately and orbiting ‘coming up for air’). It’s a consuming and compulsive listening experience the reference markers pointing in the general location of the likes of Plaid, FSOL and Apollo 440 while the appearance of the apocalyptic touches throughout hark back to a familiar landscape carved by Gary Numan’s darkly manifesting ’Pure’ set especially on the title track – its something that’s brought into sharper perspective by the ‘her odd fist’ remix of ‘face within’. ‘coming up for air’. That said ‘virus’ momentarily breaks itself free of the shackles and for awhile could – if that is our ears do not deceive – pass for the more reflective moments from Porcupine Tree’s ‘stupid dream’ set gorgeously braided as it is with parched acoustic pickings and the hollowed sound of hazy vocals piercing through the ether.
As said three additional remixes of ‘face within’ bolster the set, the previously mentioned ‘her odd fist’ along with the ‘drev remix’ and the ‘Anthony Baldino remix – amid the haze of over loading communicative traffic the former applies a spot of groove space tweaking face lifting to his re-engineering imparting a sumptuously vibrant wall of crystalline celestially tipped effervescent turbulence to the proceedings while Mr Baldino for his part supplants a hitherto to more minimalist and monochrome viewpoint, much reminiscent of a crooked latter career dark hearted Orbital the intricately busy and haunting swathes are eked out to form a curious though attractive dislocated techno funk matrix. Recommended listening. www.labilerecords.com
Key tracks – ‘Virus’, ’Coming up for air‘.
