Following a promising 12", The Drift return with a sextet of hazy suites on their phenomenal full-length Noumena. It's unclear whether the bandisconjuring Kantian philosophy with the title; but the songs here are not simply things in themselves, never to be realized or experienced. Rather,the songs are much larger and enveloping, asking to be engaged and experienced.
The Drift is a collaboration between literate members of Tarentel and Halifax Pier and within the hybrid,the sonic imprint of both bands is detectable. The album begins in uncertainty, though,with the Eno-inspired (at least titularly) and embryonic "Gardening, Not Architecture." Precisely four and a half minutes of detuned strings tuningeventually yields to actual song when guitar, percussion, horn, and bass enter in grandiosely, like royalty entering the ballroom after a train ofserfs and jesters. The initial "tuning" part will be hard to listen to for some, especially contrasted against the placid and well-rounded rest of the album. The sound in these first 4.5 minutes is sharp, angular, andcreates the disturbing image of a quartet of schizophrenic and deranged Itzhak Pearlmans preparing some symphonic assault in a very small concerthall, or perhaps (more abstractly) a cloud of vicious insects.
This chaotic theme is actually reprised towards the end, creating amere 4-minute interval of ambling clarity between the bookends ofdissonance."Invisible Cities" is an even more fragmented journey which starts outwithan inviting upright bass line. The bass punctuates the song perfectlywhile the embrace of the tempo is inescapable for the song's thirteenminutes of fracture. It's haunting as much as its Calvinoreference lurks between the notes. "Transatlantic," the focalpoint of the album, lopes along casually for the first seven minutes:electronics wisp around; a cello sound undercuts the haze; eventuallythe bass lays down the thematic progression and the song floatsfrom there. Unexpectedly, the tempo accelerates and the instrumentscrescendo into an altogether new mood. Instead of narcotic, the songbecomes manic and jumpy, spurred on by the instigations of theflugelhorn.
I first listened to Noumena on an island in Maine as the fog was rolling in from the ocean in the late afternoon. It was an incredibly soothing experience and I would recommend it for any introduction to The Drift. But even without the island and the fog and the fir trees, I don't doubt that you will have the same reaction after listening to the dulcet and gentle noise of "Fractured Then Gathered (Reprise)," the album's conclusion:to circle back to the beginning, ready to suffer the vicious insects all over again, just to experience the album once more.
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