Animal Drift Animal, the first album from Affect Display (AKA Damien Smith), is a lush sonic soundscape that sounds not unlike what you’d hear while dreaming of electric sheep.
Lead single “Until the Light Hits the Door” starts off sounding like something you might hear in the score of a modern psychological thriller but then transforms into slightly goth, slightly ambient trance music. “Flight or Fury” pulses like an alien menace on a haunted moon, blending Ennio Morricone and Vangelis influences.
The subtle sonics of”Transference” are suitable for meditation, your morning tea, making out, or taxiing down the runway on your flight to wherever you’re going to quarantine for two weeks. “Dauen” is full of bright synths, strange samples, and beats that sound like they were recorded in an empty Olympic pool (and I mean that in the best way).
“Flock” builds around a drone that could be some kind of machine Smith recorded in the field for ambient sound. Stuttering drum beats stumble around a swelling guitar line and Smith’s robot overlord vocals. “Red Blue In-Between” starts off with psychedelic guitar (!) and then becomes something like an instrumental Sisters of Mercy song with its fierce drumming and slithering synths. The closing track, “Floating Pictures,” has touches of synthwave, city pop, and ambience for a nice finish.
It’s a lovely record and one that is suitable for so many different situations that it’s impossible to list them all. Let’s hope Smith keeps up these sonic explorations and unearths more treasures for us.
Keep your mind open.
[Fly over to the subscription box while you’re here.]
[Thanks to Pirates Blend Press.]
