About two years ago, there was a short period in which I could review not one but three releases of Dead Body Love. And now there is again a brief stint in which I get to review two Dead Body Love albums and one album of a side project named Drift. So, first things first.
Behind Dead Body Love and Drift is Gabriele Giuliani. A third quite active side-project that should be mentioned, by the way, is Discordance. Dead Body Love was active in three periods: 1995-’98, 2008-’11, and right now, we see several rereleases of his older stuff. And there is a reason for that. It’s a) great stuff, and many releases were in so low numbers that it’s now impossible to get your hands on it. Thankfully, people now recognise the quality of some older releases and decide it’s quintessential that they are available for the new generation of people interested in noise—labels like Trunks, Phage Tapes, Input Error and Eighth Tower.
The third album by Gabriele Giuliani isn’t one of Dead Body Love, but it’s by his second project, Drift. It was released in 1996 by the Japanese label SSSM, which Hiroshi Hashimoto of Contagious Orgasm still runs. Back then, packed in a weird rubbery string packaging with nails, it carried two tracks titled “Phase One” and “Phase Two” of around 27 minutes. Eighth Tower Records released this iteration and has an additional third track, “Crystalline Yellow, ” recorded only last year. So yes, some new material, too!!!
The promo sheet states that Drift ‘has become a significant name in the realm of isolationist ambient music’, giving me a direction in what to expect. While listening, it got to me that through reverb and delay, there is a strong feeling of isolation and desolation here. If this would be a new artist releasing something created in this day and age it might have sounded a bit dated. But knowing these tracks were released 30 years ago before the term cinematic isolationism was even used, I must say there is much to discover here.
Slow sounds (long attack and release times) and proper use of delays to generate patterns of sounds create a solemn journey through the wasteland of what once was a healthy mind. I think that is how I would describe the atmosphere. The difference between “Phase One” and “Phase Two” lies in using the sounds. Whereas the first track at moments might trigger the thoughts of too much reverb to glue the sounds, in “Phase Two”, the minimalism makes the track. There is no ‘glue’, just the perspective of the individual sounds and the beauty of nothing in between.
Then there is “Crystalline Yellow”, written last year to add to the original two tracks. And yes, it fits the release very well. It has the same ambient feel as the original tracks, although I can’t help that it also feels like a bit of the chaotic structure of Gabriele’s other project entered the composition here. In other words, yes, the track’s structure is a beautiful ambient piece, but there are some noisy moments in there. Do we care? Hell no! It’s amazing! Three excellent albums in a row, great score!
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