Continental Drift could hardly imply earth much more (so too the album’s 'Geologist Monthly' track titles). But earth – in all of its worthy, grounded, lumpen-ness – is the least of the elements here. Rather, to these ears this is an airborne, grandly* soaring sound, mostly, with moments of timeless marine submersion & calm (particularly in the luscious, longer-form Asthenosphenic Movement trilogy) as well as of fiery crackle & roar.
Each is at play in the thrilling high point, Magnetic Striping. A controlled, faintly abrasive rush provides a richly contrasting sound bed for a slower unfurling of trio trickery – a shimmering, glinting son et lumiere a trois.
Faures - Magnetic Striping
Peeled out from behind their baffling Faures moniker (perhaps it means more in German?), Sam, René & Fuzz sound more like a scrubbed, marketing-friendly boy band than an ambient-drone supergroup (the trio’s tri-continentality another form of ‘drifting’ collision, of course). & in a way that’s fitting since a snappily melodic ear uncharacteristic of the genre underlies much of CD – particularly the two song-length Uplift pieces (Isostatic & Orogenic, as if you needed telling…).
Another way of putting it: CD is a largely unexpected slab of pretty (though hardly cute or winsome) - a notably romantic excursion out across deep waters, vast skies, even beyond the horizon & up into the spheres – a soundtrack to ascension, or immersion.
Sam is a brewer. So, finally, some tasting notes: rich, lingering body with only a touch of offsetting bitterness, not cloying, little spice, some intense top notes, elongated finish.
*Grand, certainly, & occasionally grand-standing but rarely grandiose…
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