The Drift (CD)
"I won't try and 'introduce' any of the songs on The Drift or try and offer any explication of what (so far) I think might be their general drift - I think you need to feel them as I did, as a species of shock, a series of shocking headlines history forgot to give to us, delivered into your lap, the immense and beckoning blistering NOISE of it (a truly GLORIOUS, a gloriously non-pareil bank stream current of noises), but also the microscopic attention to 'background' detail, layer upon layer, quotations, discrete little sonic movies full of scent and chill and bruise, clue and ricochet and close up. "
| Tracklisting | |
| Disk | 1 | |
| 1 | Cossacks Are |
| 2 | Clara |
| 3 | Jesse |
| 4 | Jolson And Jones |
| 5 | Cue |
| 6 | Audience |
| 7 | Buzzers |
| 8 | Psoriatic |
| 9 | The Escape |
| 10 | A Lover Loves |
| BRock Thiessen
- Vancouver, , Canada |
| Is it just me or is the number of crazies preaching their apocalyptic nonsense exceptionally high these days? Well, if they ever get their Judgment Day, Scott Walker's The Drift will likely provide its opening theme. When we last heard from Walker, he had just come out of an 11-year silence to release The Drift's younger brother, Tilt in '95. Previous to this reemergence, he was best know for his records from the late '60s, entitled Scott, 2, 3, and 4, which are often seen as total classics by numerous pop aficionados, aka music nerds. The conventional orchestrations and melodies found on these older recording are now but a memory as Walker has pursued the more dissonant sounds of the avant-rock and jazz worlds with his current output. At the youthful age of 63, he has distanced himself further from his past, refusing to go back to the calmer days of his youth.
It must be said that The Drift is of a very difficult nature and not for those without patience. Abrupt and abrasive key changes are the norm here; instruments transform into frightening sounds of tortured donkeys and swarms of birds; a Gollum-like creature screams into a microphone; and ultra-personal vocal expression is seen as commonplace. Walker combines all these elements with a dense back catalog of cultural images like Elvis' still-born twin, Jesse Garon, and the horsemanship of Cossacks, in attempts to give each song its own distinct world. This results in a very texturally complex album that flows like dreams lost in chaos, but in the end is something totally satisfying. Although many are going to write this album off as pretentious bullshit, which in way it kind of is, you at least have to respect Walker for not taking the easy way out with some watered-down version of his former self.
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