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Album Details

• Artist: Scott Walker
• Album: The Drift
• Label: 4AD
• Year of Release: 2006
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2006-08-30

By the time Scott Walker, 63, finally gives up the ghost, he will be firmly entrenched in the dreams of anyone who really cares about music. Former sixties pop fringer as part of The Walker Borthers, Walker released four solo records in the late 60's early 70's that can only be described as sounding like Skip Spence had he known what he was doing. Disjointed, oddly beautiful, always a step ahead of both the listener and the beat, these are the great lost recordings from that era. He didn't release another record until 1978, the stunning Out of the Blue, and then again, nothing until 1983's Climate of the Hunter. If known at all, his recent work producing Pulp and his 1995 Tilt release caused a few radar blips. The Drift is a brilliant, haunting record, with a claustrophobic sound not so much driven by the spare arrangements, but by the man himself. If ever an industrial feel was created by an un-effected voice, it is this. "Cossacks Are", "Jolson and Jones" express nightmares that stretch across decades. "A Lover Loves" and "Psoriatic" complain and risk with enough naked emotion to make one not only question the state of his heart but also of his mind. Deliberate risk and exorcism is rare in music, as rare as fake menace is plentiful. This is menace that is also deeply human and searching, and is a classic.

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