#24 - Ryan & Steve

Scott Walker

The Drift

2006

The first time I heard this album was one summer during college. Steve and I were back in Peoria and went to Co-op Records to pick up some new releases. Steve decided to purchase this CD, which I knew little about. He unilaterally opted to put the disc into the player after we left the shop. Let’s just say, this album doesn’t make for good driving music. The album’s opener, “Cossacks Are” started in with its pounding repetitive drumming and the tension-building guitar line. And then there’s Scott Walker’s voice. I had never heard anything like it. His wailing, ghost-like, and tortured vocals are enough to make anyone uncomfortable.

Walker has one of the most fascinating and bizarre career paths I’ve ever heard. In the 60’s he was a member of The Walker Brothers, which was an incredibly popular pop band at the height of the British Invasion. In fact, the band almost reached the height of The Beatles in terms of popularity. Scott Walker began writing his own solo works as he gained his own individual popularity with his unique vocal abilities and appealing brooding and personal qualities to his songs. He released a series of four records of solo work and then disappeared. He was always a mysterious figure that did not enjoy the limelight and was often reclusive and rarely seen without a pair of sunglasses veiling his eyes. Throughout the 70s he began putting out uninspired records to fulfill contractual obligations and suddenly disappeared for two decades. In 1995 he suddenly reappeared from exile to release Tilt, which was startlingly bleak. Those familiar with Walker’s past work may have beens surprised by this utterly grotesque transformation of a former pop icon, but it was a decade later with the release of The Drift that truly frightened its listeners. What happened to Scott Walker? The Drift is more nightmarish than Tilt, and far less composed. Scott Walker’s work has become more deconstructed, less composed, and more avant-garde employing various sounds like a wailing donkey, punching a slab of meat, and scraping across a wooden crate to accompany his melodramatic and haunting vocals. While it was difficult for me to listen to at first, I couldn’t stop coming back to it. The crushing emotions it was able to evoke in me were so unfamiliar to me, I couldn’t help but explore them -R.C.

Listening to this album I felt like I owed Scott Walker $300 for my front row seat to his Broadway production. The Drift is an impressively arranged output that finds Walker moving in all different kinds of directions. With that being said, I had no idea what he was talking about on almost all of these songs. And at 70 minutes and no visual aid to accompany the music, that can become rather draining. I would strongly recommend taking a 15-minute break halfway through this record to experience its full impact. - Phil