Watch: patten “Drift”

08 Jan 2014 — Evelyn Malinowski

What exactly are we looking at? 

Jane Eastlight's production, suited nearly perfectly for patten's "Drift," taken from ESTOILE NAIANT, out this February on Warp, offers a warm, wavering bulb that greets us at the beginning of the track and stays throughout the flashing gallery of moving images from all over the world. It serves as an anchor, the very heart of the song which, as it builds, is covered up and expanded upon, but, because of this image, is never forgotten or completely moved away from. We remember where we started and what is at the core of the matter: something simple and shimmering.

The brilliant bassline and jutting keys amount to happy anxiety encountered in travel, the milling over of beautiful images from recent experiences in a rhythmic yet staggering fashion. There is a Baruka-esque feel here, a cadence commenting on the synchronicity available in the world. Then, during the Oneohtrix Point Never break, we detach completely from the orb and flip through a more relentless display of images from the world. Both track and video end abruptly, just like visions of the future getting cut off by the present. While Eastlight's work reminds me of Nicolás Méndez of CANADA, there is something more pressing in this work, perhaps something solidified by the severity of patten's style.