Elegies for the Drift

Album review

A record that will access real estate in your psyche you didn't realize you possessed, percussionist Joe Westerlund's third album offers five expansive, calming instrumental pieces created as elegies to friends and peers he's lost. Those kindred spirits, which include the free-jazz legend Milford Graves, who was Westerlund's mentor-teacher, and the late Akron/Family co-founder Miles Cooper Seaton, passed as Westerlund was composing Elegies, and temper the pieces with a sublime melancholy.

That mood, though, is guided by sonic ideas that Westerlund, who is best known for his work with Megafaun, Gayngs, Califone and Sylvan Esso, absorbed during what he called a "swirling experience" of traveling to the Congolese capital of Kinshasa. Those familiar with the exuberant Congotronics recordings by Konono Nº1 know the sound, one Westerlund describes in the album notes as a "series of layered, interlocking patterns" that propel bodies as they mesmerize minds. 

For the track "Kinshasa Yang," Westerlund arranged early rhythm tracks through the filter of his experiences in the Congo and, he said, "began to dub out the initial ideas with sudden mutes, filter sweeps, echoing delays and cassette-squashed phasing, not unlike how a club DJ might manipulate tracks in a live setting." Across seven minutes on "The Circle" Westerlund layers drunken bells and warbled voices to create a piece that defies categorization. Infinitely rewarding, Elegies for the Drift will consume whatever headspace you allow it, especially the areas interested in deeply, intentionally listening at full volume to rhythm-driven, epiphany-inducing instrumental works. © Randall Roberts/Qobuz