POPMATTERS: The 20 Best Electronic Albums of 2020
POPMATTERS: The 20 Best Electronic Albums of 2020
BY SABY REYES-KULKARNI
“8. Tristan Perich - Drift Multiply [New Amsterdam/Nonesuch]
If you've ever had the experience where an artist's statement ends up being more tantalizing than the work it describes, Tristan Perich's Drift Multiply flips the script on that experience. In this case, the music on Drift Multiply outshines the inspiration suggested by Perich. Perich is certainly a thoughtful artist working with a fertile concept. But knowing about this music's building blocks before listening imposes something of a distraction here, as it primes the listener to expect a highly left-brained experience borne of the New York-based composer's fascination with numbers and code. The surprisingly fluid Drift Multiply eludes any stereotypes you might have based on how the music was constructed. And, for the most part, the album falls about as far from synthetic-sounding as music gets.
Fans of film scores, minimalism, avant-garde composition, ambient electronic music, and drone should all find much to sink their teeth into here. Perich certainly isn't the first to integrate those forms. His method of assembling them into a unified system—his distinct physics of sound where an individual violin line can both blur into the background and stand out simultaneously—would certainly have been impressive enough. Perhaps Perich's ultimate feat is the way he's come up with a long, drawn-out piece of music that's this inviting despite itself. As cerebral as Perich's approach seems to be (he has, for example, released printouts of binary code with his music in the past), Drift Multiply requires zero thinking or analysis to enjoy. Listen attentively, though, and it becomes apparent that this album is a game-changer on multiple fronts.”