A ceaseless ambient beauty flows throughout Drifting Intervals, the captivating new album from De Moi. The project represents the stage name of Czech musician and sound artist Vojtech Vesely. His admiration for inventive and hypnotic production techniques flows across multiple realms — from the sustained drone use of La Monte Young, to the tape-delay systems utilized by Terry Riley and Robert Fripp. A particularly prominent influence is William Basinski and his Disintegration Loops album series, which directly inspired Vesely’s techniques within Drifting Intervals.
Drifting Intervals showcases what feels like an unending glow, brought upon by Vesely’s embrace of tape delays — steadily decaying and merging in ultimately creating what resembles a nearly infinite reverb. The tape delays and deep reverb combine to produce a dynamic tonal glimmering, subtly weaving in new sounds within a droning blissfulness. The result is a memorable fusion of lush atmospheric perpetuity and individual notes, cohesively intertwining in a way that resembles one large audible piece. Vesely also notes Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening as another influence, in its exploration of acoustics within a large underground cistern. With this album, Vesely simulates an echo within something described as “an imaginary space several kilometers wide.”
The natural cohesion within the delicately evolving structures resemble a moving art piece, enjoyably. Various notes meld gradually, like mixing different paint colors until they form a new hue. The ensuing colors are gorgeous. “Drifting Intervals I” opens the album with a calming warmness, as more illuminated chime-like textures interweave gradually into the one-minute turn. A caressing, string-laden feeling enters in the second half. A meditative serenity is quickly apparent. “II” resembles a steady continuation, while “III” and “IV” incorporate an airier effervescence within the radiant textures of sound.
By the time “Drifting Intervals VI” takes hold, a bass-y undercurrent coexists peacefully with the original, bright droning. This bass component fades back into a more tranquil slumber by the mid-point of “VIII,” then assuming a return to the opening track’s sparser elegance. Drifting Intervals continues with introspective immersion into its concluding moments, exuding a starry-eyed intrigue in its sporadic twinkling and droning comforts. De Moi’s Drifting Intervals is a standout ambient success, drawing upon the inventive techniques of artists like William Basinski, while also creating something entirely new and stimulating in its embrace of tape delays and deep reverb.
