Album Review: De Moi – Drifting Intervals
Czech musician and sound artist Vojtech Vesely, known by his stage name De Moi, is a rare case – he managed to stumble into vast new territories in a genre where, it seems, the Age of Discovery has ended long ago – ambient. Drifting Intervals is the name of his excellent new album. And it's also the name of an ambient music technique he has developed.
The idea behind Drifting Intervals is simple yet genius. It is based upon the stacking of musical intervals created by any combination of timbres and putting them through a framework of analog echoes, where they slowly dissolve and blend together, creating new shifting and evolving timbres. Drawing influence from William Basinski’s loop-based deterioration, as well as Terry Riley’s and Robert Fripp’s pioneering delay experiments, Vesely extends these concepts by crafting an illusion of almost boundless resonance. This element takes cues from Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening, which investigated the reverberant qualities of a vast subterranean water tank. But what if the tank was as big as a village? Vesely advances Oliveros’ idea by emulating reflections in an imagined environment spanning multiple kilometers.
All of this sounds intruguing not only on paper. The music is outstanding. It is beautiful. It is timbrally rich. It sounds like nothing else. Yes, all those things. But it is more than that – Drifting Intervals is truly polarizing. It is music of direct impact. In many ways it works like a deprivation tank, which can induce boundless calm in ones and put others to sleep. It can bring back life-altering childhood memories or even cause panic attacks. And this comparison is not poetic justice. I've tested Drifting Intervals on a few of my willing friends and acquaintances, and some of them were nice enough to provide quotes, some of which I will include here (slightly edited for clarity).
But more on that later. First I need to get a bit technical. Our long-time readers know that album reviews on this blog follow the same pattern. We take the tracks one after another and dissect them one by one, with each song diving deeper into the essence of the record we're reviewing. And this has worked for years. Until now. Drifting Intervals defies this convention. Not doable. The trance-inducing record takes you by the hand and... boom! – you're in another world, where you can't tell how much time has passed, if one track has ended and the next one has started. The record just doesn't work this way. (Yes, much like a float tank mentioned earlier). It works the way it works, and, of course, I'm gonna follow its lead.
So, no, it's not going to be a track-by-track review. And no, it's not going to be a review at all. How can you review water? Water flows. Water evaporates. Water quenches thirst. Water can drown you. Water is blue. Water is liquid. Water is transparent. But never all at once. And never to the same person. Drifting Intervals is like that. I told you it's direct impact music. And the impact is different for every listener. So I meditated on it and I decided to do the following. Send the album to a few people and see how it works for them. And then give you a few of my favourite quotes. This will be more honest than trying to come up with an artsy review for something that defies reviewing.
The idea behind Drifting Intervals is simple yet genius. It is based upon the stacking of musical intervals created by any combination of timbres and putting them through a framework of analog echoes, where they slowly dissolve and blend together, creating new shifting and evolving timbres. Drawing influence from William Basinski’s loop-based deterioration, as well as Terry Riley’s and Robert Fripp’s pioneering delay experiments, Vesely extends these concepts by crafting an illusion of almost boundless resonance. This element takes cues from Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening, which investigated the reverberant qualities of a vast subterranean water tank. But what if the tank was as big as a village? Vesely advances Oliveros’ idea by emulating reflections in an imagined environment spanning multiple kilometers.
All of this sounds intruguing not only on paper. The music is outstanding. It is beautiful. It is timbrally rich. It sounds like nothing else. Yes, all those things. But it is more than that – Drifting Intervals is truly polarizing. It is music of direct impact. In many ways it works like a deprivation tank, which can induce boundless calm in ones and put others to sleep. It can bring back life-altering childhood memories or even cause panic attacks. And this comparison is not poetic justice. I've tested Drifting Intervals on a few of my willing friends and acquaintances, and some of them were nice enough to provide quotes, some of which I will include here (slightly edited for clarity).
But more on that later. First I need to get a bit technical. Our long-time readers know that album reviews on this blog follow the same pattern. We take the tracks one after another and dissect them one by one, with each song diving deeper into the essence of the record we're reviewing. And this has worked for years. Until now. Drifting Intervals defies this convention. Not doable. The trance-inducing record takes you by the hand and... boom! – you're in another world, where you can't tell how much time has passed, if one track has ended and the next one has started. The record just doesn't work this way. (Yes, much like a float tank mentioned earlier). It works the way it works, and, of course, I'm gonna follow its lead.
So, no, it's not going to be a track-by-track review. And no, it's not going to be a review at all. How can you review water? Water flows. Water evaporates. Water quenches thirst. Water can drown you. Water is blue. Water is liquid. Water is transparent. But never all at once. And never to the same person. Drifting Intervals is like that. I told you it's direct impact music. And the impact is different for every listener. So I meditated on it and I decided to do the following. Send the album to a few people and see how it works for them. And then give you a few of my favourite quotes. This will be more honest than trying to come up with an artsy review for something that defies reviewing.
It's impressive how I lost track of time listening to the record. It's like meditation. The sound changes, but slowly and gradually, turning the listening experience into an excercise in concentration. After a while you get used to the soundscape and start noticing little details – small changes in sound you wouldn't notice earlier or the introduction of new, barely noticeable timbres. After the record finishes, you are changed. The change may be as small as each of the timbral shifts that you learned to notice while listening, or as big as the reverberating environment used by De Moi. But it's real.
VL
VL
For the first few tracks everything felt comfortable. I thought this is the kind of music I can work to (I'm a graphic designer). Then I slowly started feeling a sort of warm dizziness that I tried to ignore, until it turned to symptoms of real nausea. I stopped the record.
When I came back to it, I instantly felt the strong dizziness again. And I can't say I don't like the music! I really enjoyed it. But at the same time I couldn't ignore the physical symptoms. This is crazy. Disorienting. I will come back to the album to see how it goes.
Marat S.
When I came back to it, I instantly felt the strong dizziness again. And I can't say I don't like the music! I really enjoyed it. But at the same time I couldn't ignore the physical symptoms. This is crazy. Disorienting. I will come back to the album to see how it goes.
Marat S.
It's like you're slowly coming down to the ocean floor: sounds get fuzzier, wildlife gets scarcer, until everything fades into a blur.
Elena
Elena
Pure calmness and bliss. I don't know – maybe it's a sonic illusion, I know, these are just intervals, but after a while you start hearing melodies. Maybe it's the way the soundscapes are meant to trigger our brain in a natural way. Or maybe it's inspiration at work – Drifting Intervals stimulates your composer's instincts.
Peter
Peter
My impressions were different throughout the whole album. At first I imagined peaceful nature – cold morning after a night of fishing at a desolate lake, something like that. Then I thought of an orchestra preparing for a symphony. But then I thought: maybe, it's an orchestra of stars, if stars could have voices? Or an orchestra of insects, if insects could sing? At the end of the album I thought of the music as of an orchestra of people's souls getting in tune with each other. I mean the people who are listening to this album at the moment. Different people from all ends of the world sharing a complex, strong and peaceful emotion. It's a beautiful picture.
Erkin G.
Erkin G.