…to join our new MAILING LIST - over there on the right…

film in nearly done, screenings will be announced, so charge into our field of white roses…

Attention Los Angeles fans…a 10 min. trailer for our film will screen at the film festival in Los Angeles, held at the wonderful .
It has now been confirmed to play on OPENING NIGHT before the film “GHOST ON THE HIGHWAY: A PORTRAIT OF JEFFERY LEE PIERCE AND THE GUN CLUB”. Thursday, June 29th at 8pm

This is NOT the EPK that is currently available on YouTube by the by…

Arctic Monkey Alex Turner had this to say in the latest issue of Hot Press…

‘Me two favourite songs at the moment are ‘Sheba’, which is by a 50s rock’n'roll band called Johnny & The Hurricanes, and Scott Walker’s version of Jacques Brel’s ‘Jackie’ - them lyrics are pretty smart!’

And

‘David Bowie came backstage in New York, which was more exciting for our manager Geoff than it was for us. If he’d brought Scott Walker with him though, I’d have been shitting meself!’

(Just a word to any skeptical film buyers out there in regards to the demographic appeal of this film…the Arctic Monkeys are all -barely- 20 year olds!)

and a free dvd of this film (when complete) to the first person to fully explain the multiple-references in the title of this post…

Album Press page continues to be updated, the latest being a wonderful, in-depth and detailed review/article by Thom Jurek for AllMusic.com…

” I’ve spent weeks playing The Drift, Scott Walker’s latest foray into dense, art-damaged composition, precise spatial construction, and process-oriented production. The Drift feels like a perverse funhouse mirror reflecting back individual and collective senses of dislocation, brokenness, and the unexpected, sometimes perverse places love exists inside, helping to facilitate redemption or disaster. The cracked language fragments that serve as lyrics offer distorted images and utterances a way to speak from the void and enter the world. In the album’s songs, Walker brings listeners meditations on history, real and imagined. But there are stories here, too; they are either forgotten, or never existed. ”

“He offers no place to run, no place to hide, only absence, littered space, and the wandering around of unseeable beings and buildings across the landscape, lifting the whole thing to the level of Shakespearean tragedy.”

the full article is

Also interesting to note - at , in their list of the top albums thus far of 2006, based on accumulated critic scores, The Drift is #2!

“breaking to where loaded icons wade…”
The nominees included the late Johnny Cash, David Bowie, Neil Young and Van Morrison but the 2006 Mojo Magazine ICON award was on our man Scott, the reports.

The award is voted for by MOJO readers and Mojo4music users - well done.

from The Tube to YouTube

we cut for 4 AD/Beggars Group now haunts the virtual ventricles of YouTube…interview excpepts, studio scenes…

So the USA must endure another Driftless week…all good things come to…haste makes…patience is a…

and so on.

in the meantime…the raves continue to roll in…check updated album press including a review from , the first I believe to categorize the album as ‘punk’ - I’ve always thought he was far more punk than most of what as punk these days.
and in the meantime…the edit of the film continues apace.  Grant Gee and I are huddled in Brighton hacking away, our man Jerry Chater working in tandem in the wilds of Battersea…a particularly moving moment emerged just recently…Ute Lemper listening to “Lullaby (By-by-by)”, which Scott wrote for her album .  She hadn’t head it in 5 years.  She is genuinely taken by surprise, and stops, utters a barely audible “wow” as the song soars…

Not that it should be news to anybody, but yes, the 11 year wait is OVER.  There it was on the New Releases shelf at the HMV in Victoria Station - I bought five.  Come on fellow UK-based Plastic Palace People…can we nudge our man Scott into the Top 20?  If a Scott & Walker Bros. best-of can enter the charts at #24…well, that’s saying something isn’t it?  So, well done all you die-hards, let’s knock that damned Snow Patrol down a few notches, and what’s with Pearl Jam and that bloody avocado album? Get lost you tired fuckers, make way for the Drifter…

US release is, as again, many of you know, delayed to the 21st or so - hold on…brace yourselves…

Cribbed from the 4AD website…highlights of recent press - see UPDATED ALBUM PRESS page for full reviews…

Here’s a selection of British reviews :

“extraordinary … close to genius” Observer

“a record that genuinely sounds like nothing you have heard before … a frightening, bewitching and rewarding experience” Uncut

“the most weighty album to be released by a major artist this year, possibly this decade” Independent

“comparisons are pointless : amid pop’s endless self-regurgitation, that’s surely reason enough to tune in” Daily Telegraph

“there’s not a minute of The Drift that isn’t utterly thrilling” The Guardian

“to be listened to in total darkness, lying on your back on the carpet, completely alone” Independent On Sunday (Album Of The Week)

“absolutely compelling” Observer Music Monthly (Album Of The Month)

“as utterly singular as Tilt, The Drift marks Scott Walker as the true forefather to figures like Anthony Hegarty; his voice fluttering like a dove over a blackened landscape” NME

“the most extraordinary album I’ve heard in years … I can’t help but feel fascinated by it” Daily Express (Album Of The Week)

“Scott Walker … is making music that few others could even imagine” Mojo

“one of the most compelling, exhausting and harrowingly beautiful records you’ll ever hear” Time Out

The most excellent cinema/bar, , will be hosting the 4AD/Beggars Group for The Drift on Monday, May 8th. If all goes according to plan, they will be screening a few extended scenes from the film along with a bunch of classic Scott/Walker Brothers video highlights.