Much of the music of the Western world is math: fractions and ratios, predictable patterns, calculable qualities. With its rigid rules and strict shapes, it's increasingly not what I like to listen to. I prefer my sounds unbound and organic. Driftworks, a four-CD collection, rejects such prescriptive Western forms.
Australian sound designer Paul Schütze's groovy, shuffling "Stateless" thrums your ears into half-trance. "Homage" launches your drift with billows of synth that wash across a collection of found sounds, each pristine and crystalline, like waves on a glass beach. German composer Thomas Köner reveals his fascination with snow in the powerful "Nuuk," where magnified jewels of sampled noise are easily likened to the icy sound of the Arctic.
Far from the overwrought ambient genre, Driftworks maps unique topography. Listen actively: when you surface, you may find yourself less tolerant of the calculated music of the West.
STREET CRED
Smooth in the Crud Speedpass Gas
Western Release
