Lauré Lussier - Driftways

 Released: June 5

The newest release from Lauré Lussier, Driftways, consists of two wonderful pieces that stand in fairly stark contrast to one another. Both are incredibly atmospheric, yes. But “Thémes & Variations” feels quite different to its counterpart in its atmosphere. Of the two, I firmly found the first piece to be much more engaging, mainly due to the nature of the composition. There’s this one little piece of melody that features throughout the song - a small little motif seeming played on a flute or some other wind instrument that will show and play for a short time. Then the following several minutes feel like an exceedingly warped and twisted version of it, smearing its sonic qualities to the extremes until it sounds unrecognizable. Then, it suddenly reappears as if nothing had happened. I found myself getting lost in the weirdness only to be suddenly snapped back when the motif reoccurred. 

The second part, “Rondo,” carries some of this technique along with it but it felt as though there is less grounding to it. It carries us along with an alternation of classical instrumentation that is slowly overtaken by strange noises. But the disconnection between some of the parts is quite apparent. It drifts along gently for the most part, feeling much like the moment after until it dives into strange acoustics territory with crunches, slams, and risers that contrast wildly with the synthetic strings and horn that play out half melodies and short motifs. There are parts where it feels quite cinematic, as if we suddenly found ourselves in an uplifting or a severe moment in the story. It is rather odd but I did enjoy the drift of it all as it explored tangentially connected themes in quick succession. But if you are to listen to any of this album, I would strongly encourage you to listen to it all at once so you can really feel the contrast between the two pieces.