Steven Deacid from Cologne is a musician active in a wide range of sounds: From singer/songwriter acoustics to minimalist ambient and IDM spans his oeuvre. His first release on Petcord as Night Drone exhibits the ambient side of his music, a moonlit trip into gloomy persistently hovering soundscapes. Drifts 1-4 marks the beginning of a series of pieces that focus on deep saturated timbres and sustained tones blending into another. Sparsely arranged and yet successfully managing to escape monotony by constantly changing sound characteristics, an approach well known from Minimalist music. Drifts 1-4 prioritises the creation of a cinematic vision, a constant stream of floating association freely defined by the listener. The paradox of creating a mind movie without defined content may appear strange at first glance, but Night Drone makes it happen.

Assigning a handy label to Drift 1-4 is a rather daunting task, because this release does not adhere to common standards. It takes analogue synth sounds characteristic of 90ies IDM electronica, but uses it within a Dark Ambient inspired context without any percussive elements. Because of this crossover, floating tones see constant modulation, addition and subtraction of overtones, as well as more distinct thematic progression. Due to sparse arrangements, Night Drone is capable of reaching clarity in blending tones and approaches sci-fi soundtrack quality, where others get lost in mushy reverberation and awkward sound clusters. Drifts 1-4 differs from previous Petcord releases, in that its focus is set differently, but at the same time maintaining an unique blend of influences for a pleasent listening experience.

Olliver Wichmann

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Music © 2008 Steven Deacid and the Petcord netlabel.
Cover art © 2008 Olliver Wichmann and the Petcord netlabel.