Knitted together by film noir and tragic loss, The Drift's post-rock sonics pulsate on the band's atmospheric latest effort, Blue Hour. Especially on the post-traumatic catharsis of "Dark Passage" (below), which nods its head in the direction of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's 1947 thriller of the same name.
LISTEN: ‘Dark Passage’ by The Drift"I'm a huge fan of that film, and most any with Bogart and Lauren Bacall," guitarist Danny Grody told Wired.com in an e-mail chat, before San Francisco band The Drift sailed to Europe for a tour with the instrumentally epic Explosions in the Sky, which starts Friday in Spain.
"Dark Passage struck me because it was filmed where we live, and captures the city in an especially mysterious and beautiful way," he said. "I also love that it deals heavily with transformation, which was something the band could really connect with during the process of writing the record."
It was a charged connection: Grody, drummer Rich Douthit and bassist Trevor Montgomery lost Drift trumpeter Jeff Jacobs to cancer in January. So it would be logical to expect The Drift's tour abroad with Explosions in the Sky, whose first official video for "Last Known Surroundings" premiered in June on Wired.com, to be heavily synaesthetic.
The members of Explosions in the Sky "are dear friends and have been extremely supportive to us throughout Jeff's battle with cancer," said Grody. "They flew out for a one-off show to help raise funds for Jeff towards the end of 2010. We opened. Jeff was able to be present and was smiling the whole night. So we're just very grateful to have this opportunity to get back out there and play."
As they should, considering that Blue Hour is one of the spaciest sonic offerings of the year. From the mournful rumble of "Dark Passage" to the shimmering psychedelia of "Luminous Friend" (below), the new record is triumphantly reminiscent of peak Floyd, as well as a moving farewell to an irreplaceable friend.
Grody's dimensional explorations stretch further in the ambient project Moholo-Nagy, whose Like Mirage also arrived last month from Temporary Residence Ltd.. Moholo-Nagy's glacial expanses lean more toward Brian Eno and Tarantel, which Grody co-founded with Moholo-Nagy mates Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Trevor Montgomery in 1995.
"Moholy-Nagy was inspired by a shared interest in cosmic music, both past and present," Grody said. "It's named for the Bauhaus professor and artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. We were taken by the beauty of his name and nature of the work he created."
It's an apt homage. Moholy-Nagy was an early proponent of industrial integration and multimedia, and both of Grody's bands are more than capable of creating musical movies for the mind. And he's ready to score for the greats, if the stars ever correctly align.
"I've always felt drawn to film as a source of inspiration," Grody said. "It would be fantastic to write for Werner Herzog, Terrance Malick or David Lynch [whose debut solo effort Crazy Clown Time lands Nov. 7]. All three are so musical in their approach, and have a particular sensitivity to the role sound plays in their work."
