Driftwood - Maps (Room40) [Electroacoustic Ambient]
- The Slow Music Movement
- 7 minutes ago
- 2 min read
*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's July 7th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***
I’m glad that labels like Room40 exist, even if a lot of their releases are somewhat challenging but, due to Lawrence English’s curatorial quality control, I keep an ear on them and leap on the label’s mellower, more melodic moments with glee. And this Driftwood album is a serious winner.
Driftwood comprises Nick Ashwood and Aviva Endean, who appear to have bonded over a love of microtonally re-tuned pump organs and electronic music, with Ashwood also playing guitar, and Endean the clarinet. Their debut album was similarly improvised, although more of a project sketch I’d suggest, that sat somewhere around the sparsely populated folk and jazz-infused ambient intersection, but they’ve obviously been giving the project some thought since, and they’ve just made quite the evolutionary leap.
This time round, they’ve brought in a guitar, effects pedals and contact mics to the studio, and as well as recording their live instrument juggling - which perhaps they’ll kindly capture on camera for the next installment, they post-produced the recordings, processing some of the sounds and injecting some new frequencies to fine effect. The result is a live instrument-rich, electroacoustic ambient pleasure. Tracks variously spiral off into cosmic realms - just check “Restless Earth”, Eastern lands are evoked and spiritual paths suggested; minimal, mantric repetition abounds, minimal guitar mediations made public and clarinet improvised over spiritual drones. The progression from the debut is real and fingers crossed, the project will run and run, it could just be one of those rare beasts - a cultured ambient project that you’d actually like to see live.
