Recording: North Atlantic Drift

Artist: North Atlantic Drift

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Gladstone Hotel's Melody Bar (Wavelength SEVENTEEN – Drone Brunch), February 19, 2016.

North Atlantic Drift - [excerpt]

An interesting little sonic and social experiment offering a juxtaposition of the clatter of plates, the clink of cutlery and the murmurs of conversation with some ambient sounds. Watching the brunch crowd in their natural environment, there'd often be a moment of realization a minute or two after they sat down that there was live music being performed on stage. It all seemed to fit together into a reasonably cozy zone. Seguing seamlessly in from the previous set, North Atlantic Drift mapped some icy Eno-esque seas of before slipping into more of a Vangelis zone, as if the brunch crowd were stopping into Blade Runner's Los Angeles 2019 for their eggs benny.

[You could expect some drone-drifty sounds (and less background chatter!) at Wavelength's Don't Speak II show, this Saturday (March 18th) at The Baby G. Performances from Kyle Bobby Dunn, Off World, Bomb & Body and Zone Support in an environment where talking is forbidden.]

Recording: North Atlantic Drift

Artist: North Atlantic Drift

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Handlebar (The AMBiENT PiNG), October 11, 2016.

North Atlantic Drift - unknown

Leaning more toward abstract drift and further away from their more song-based material, Brad Deschamps and Mike Abercrombie created a favourable continuation of the abstract vibe provided by Valiska in the night's earlier set. Working through three pieces, there was actually room to stretch these out even further, but the pair kept things relatively succinct and contained.

[The AMBiENT PiNG returns to Handlebar on Tuesday (November 15th) with a triple-bill lineup of No Seas, Shimmer Crush and l'ombre.]

^* I think this was more of a structured improvisation than a "song", so I'm not sure if there's a title to this one. Please leave a comment if you know for sure!

Recording: North Atlantic Drift

Artist: North Atlantic Drift

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Array Space (Wavelength 696: Don't Speak), March 25, 2016.

North Atlantic Drift - unknown

An interesting, if not completely successful, experiment socially-engineered by WL's Adam Bradley, this performance came with a prohibition against verbal communication not only during but in between the evening's sets. While that's appreciated as a means of enjoying the music without interruption, it actually felt rather oppressive when the musicians weren't playing — and, truth be told, rather than trying to muck about with the supplied cards and pencils for written communication, I simply withdrew into the company of my phone and felt rather isolated in a way that I could be any time at home. Far more discomfiting was the decision to not offer chairs, leaving a room of people milling about on their feet while absorbing some slowly-unfurling ambient music. I guess from my perspective, the thing that threw me off the most about this gig is that I find myself hanging out at Array Space fairly often, and to me it's the sort of place where no top-down rules are required to enjoy music in comfort and silence — adding the formal gimmick was just too much inorganic chemistry.

I was definitely glad to have a chance to hear this duo performing in a less casual environment than I had previously caught 'em in. With General Chaos' swirling textures on two walls behind them, Brad Deschamps and Mike Abercrombie came the closest to employing traditional song-structures, their set broken into three pieces or suites, each with their own internal sonic resolution. This final, and longest, piece is quite pleasingly glacial in its development.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: North Atlantic Drift

Artist: North Atlantic Drift

Song: North Atlantic Drift^*

Recorded at Smiling Buddha — basement (Casual Drones 14), January 14, 2016.

North Atlantic Drift - North Atlantic Drift

Having outgrown the small-scale confines of its former home at Milk Glass, the Casual Drones music series has landed at Smiling Buddha. Shifting to the larger venue has come with a definite sense of scaling up, with the shows taking place between two stages upstairs and down and the visuals (always a big element of the series) getting amped up even further. The main floor saw most of the stage removed to make way for a large lighting rig that resembled a sort of post-apocalyptic tanning bed and gave Romar L. Johnson a huge range of luminosity to paint with. So, to the good, there's a definite sense of ambition here — and the full house that was on hand showed there's an audience for this kind of experimentation. To the bad, however, this night did manage to live up to the series' derisive nickname of "Casual Bromes", with seven sets (and, by my count, ten musicians) but no women on stage. (And, for my money, I'm not sure why a night with that many acts needed to wait 'til almost ten to get started.)

This local duo was my fave discovery of the night, providing an ambient, mellow vibe — the word "drift" is quite reasonably right there in their name — that commanded the attention of an oft-chatty crowd. There's also a pop sensibility at work here, with this piece sounding not-unlike a cousin to, say, "The Streets of Philadelphia". I note that they have a whole bunch of music for offer up on their bandcamp, so this warrants further investigation.

^* Thanks to the band for passing the title to this one along!