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There is a very nice little piece in this months Word magazine about the ever mutating and overlapping folk community, and most appropriately it took the form of a family tree; branching from Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson and the incredible string band, through Alt country heroes Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Bill Callahan to the British contingency of King Kreosote and James Yorkston.



The family tree takes in not only our roster, but also the Fence collective and the piece is hung around the collective forming of The Accidental, who's debut album is out now.

The 'Sussex/Devon folk Symposium' that is Drift took up a good corner of the page, spidering out to include The R.G.Morrison, Thirty Pounds of Bone, Birdengine and the music polar opposites Mary Hampton and Cottonmouth Rocks.

You can browse the links between us and the Beta Band here, as well as spotting a good few of our friends in the tree’s entirety.

We are very proud to announce that this years Greenman festival, will mark the live debut of "The Drift Collective".

The Collective band is comprised exclusively from artists signed to the label, and will rework songs taken from Drift releases.

It's going to be "a 40 minute mix tape with everyone on the wrong instruments."

We'll be slowly confirming what's going on between now and the festival, so join the newsletter and read the blog to hear first.

Our blog has been on a bit of a hiatus in the last month, but it is back with a vengeance!

R.G. Has taken it over full time and will be using it to post all the links for suggested listening and viewing that we have been struggling to find a place for. Also live listings, forthcoming release announcements and general Drift business.

Keep him company eh?

drift blog

We announced on our newsletter (join the mailing-list above to get Drift news ahead of the game) that we are very exited to be working on a full release with Thomas White.

Thomas is of cause critically praised for his work in Electric Soft Parade, Brakes and Restless List, and we are very proud to be the home for his forthcoming “I dream of Black" record.

It is a more intimate affair to his previous records, and well and truly at home with the Drift Bird.

You can have a sneak listen here

He recently gave a preview of it at the luminaire (that was shit hot) and will also be playing support to Chris TT at Brighton's Komedia Theatre on 8th April... Miss at your peril.

We will also take this opportunity to confirm that we will be releasing FOUR records between now and July... With Matt Eaton, Mary Hampton, Tandy Hard and Thomas White all making waves.

Full details to follow.. And again, first news will be via email... So join the mailing list.

   

The Drift Collective album keeps cropping up in the monthly magazines (excellent work PR team!) Here our some further kind words.

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Record Collector Magazine

West country folk underground movement

Fitting well with our laudable aims of supporting the small traders, the Drift label has already gained attention for it’s artists and releases. Appearing to have attracted a group of like-minded musicians who have emerged blinky-eyed from the Devon hedgerows, they now all support each other recording a variety of modern folk that proudly follows its own directions and inclinations without caring a fig what the mainstream might suggest.

Each of the tracks here offer interest, from the sparser ones such as The RG Morrison with In Meadows and Tandy Hard’s Hurricane, through to the fuller ones such as Matt Eaton’s jog-along Too Scared to Fly, Mary Hampton’s delicate Eros, and the Green Park’s (ed. Great Park) Paper Birds, which appears to have pretty well everyone pitching in. Also included is In Search of Oil under label co-founder Johny Lamb’s nom du disque Thirty Pounds of Bone whose album last year was such a treat.

Inventive, imaginative and different; long may they collect together. - Kingsley Abbott

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The Word Magazine

A trip to the country with the southern countries collective

This album opens with birdsong. It leads into Birdengine's shivering lovely, acoustic I, Dancing Bear and sets the tone perfectly for 11 very intimate and pastoral songs by the Sussex-Devon musician’s collective. The whole album verily reeks of autumn leaf-mould, open fires in stone-built pubs and magic mushrooms in beech woodlands, making for a very British kind of country music. Although American country music ghosts occasionally hover too, specifically Gram Parsons and Johnny Cash in songs by The Great Park and Monk Jack Deer (ed. Muntjac Dear), these small-scale, gently sketched-out songs are more country-minded in the way that they create a place worlds away from the hysteria of the urban rat race. Even when the musicians turn electronic, as in Nada’s deeply peculiar Residents-playing-Tetris More Custard, or Cottonmouth Rocks stripped-bare PJ Harvey-meets-St Etienne Racetrack, The Drift Family provide a near-miraculous glimmer of frail, reflective humanity in a bullshit-filled world. - Joe Muggs

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Rock ‘N’ Reel Magazine

Drift is an independent Devon-based label with nine acts signed, represented by this eleven-track sampler. No, I couldn’t figure that out either. It opens with the sounds of scratchy vinyl and birdsong of Birdengine’s ‘I, Dancing Bear’, which may not be a totally original idea. It’s not quite ‘Grantchester Meadows’ but it’s there in spirit. Birdengine may be a band or a pseudonym for Lawry Jospeh Tilbury, for this is a real collective with everyone working with one another in various combinations, so a band’s name my be determined by who is singing lead. There’s little background information on the sleeve so the music is rightly allowed to stand on it’s own merits.

There’s the influence of early Floyd and Nick Drake on a few tracks and some nearly conventional acoustic rock like Thirty Pounds of Bone’s ‘In Search of Oil’ and Matt Eaton’s ‘Too Scared to Fly’. I would include Monk Jack Deer’s (ed. Muntjac Dear) 'Handsome Friends’ except the lead instrument is a ukulele. Mary Hampton’s ‘Eros’ is a long lush piece with the feel of a traditional ballad that seems to take me back to... Somewhen. I want to hear more from these people. - Dai Jeffries

We are very exited to announce the first release in our all new digital only EP series. Expect releases, rareties and all number of collective outings in the next 12 months. We are calling these DFTIY and they will also be available from us as CDRs. It all starts with a roaring EP from Matt Eaton - "The Village Bear". Get it!



The Village Bear EP is;

"an indicator of the Brighton scene before all the London commuters moved in and brought their Faithless CDs with them." (3 Bar Fire) and "Quite ruddy sublime if you want my honest opinion." (Losing Today)

- to use other peoples words.

The digital only medium with no packaging or sleeve notes always seemed like a fairly grim avenue to us, but we're slowly being won over and it does offer us the opportunity to release more regulalry... plus rare bits and live treats!

Buy The Village Bear from:

itunes

The Drift Collective album has been getting some glowing coverage since it's release which is always nice.

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Mojo

Genial Sampler from Devon cottage industry label.

The Drift Collective is well named - a significant rump of artists distributed across its 11 tracks reappearing elsewhere in supporting roles, lending proceedings a communal, campfire air. The odd detour into nebulous, sub-Tunng folktronica aside, there's much to commend here, not least the awkwardly named The R.G. Morrison, whose In Meadows marries Satie-like piano figures with wistful graveside meditations, while stately balladeers Tandy Hards's spindly Scott Walker/Nick Drake composite Hurricane recalls the work of cult 80's troubadours Palace Of Light. Elsewhere, Nada essay wordless folktronica minus the folk bit, proffering woozy synths, clattering syndrums and spectral keyboard flights, while Monk Jack Deer is a West Country Jonathan Richman with a ukulele and a gnomic turn of phrase ("he lay with you but he flew to me") which - like much of this gently eccentric album - is difficult to dislike. - David Sheppard

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Is this Music?

The Drift Collective is a compilation that presents such a consistent tone and quality that it appears to be the work of a single artist. From Mary Hampton’s vocal extravaganza ‘Eros’ to RG Morrison’s spooky parlour piano on ‘In Meadows’, this album evinces a fascination with subdued spaces between folk, electronica and old-fashioned popular song.

Hampton and Morrison provide the stand-out tracks, comfortably adapting acoustic instruments and discreet accompaniment to a direct and emotional song-craft that evokes the early twentieth century. Matt Eaton and Monk Jack Deer provide cheerier fare, rambling along with banjos to a jaunty beat, but the faded, sepia-tinted tone fixes the melancholy in the opening track , ‘I, Dancing Bear’ by Birdengine. Aside from the occasional lapse into the twee, The Drift Collective has the disturbing resonance of an undiscovered British folk tradition.
Despite the label’s acceptance of the fictional folktronica tag- electronic folk music will be more than a few glitches and cracks atop an acoustic guitar- Drift Records have assembled a strong roster that manages to embrace the past while retaining an ironic distance, forging new paths out of the acoustic tradition. - Gareth Vile

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The Observer

Down at the roots of British folk, strange things continue to stir. Devon's Drift label has a small but intriguing roster of young talents from whom this 11-track sampler is drawn. The self-penned material shares a laconic humour but musically it's diverse. Birdengine offer an oddball line in crepuscular English pastoral while Mary Hampton's skylark of a voice floats on an arrangement of harmonium and strings. There's bleepy folktronica, stalwart strumming and droll country influences, while on 'Racetrack', from Cottonmouth Rocks, a female version of the Streets raps over a honking Human League synth: 'Shine your shiny car lights on me, boy!' Smart. - Neil Spencer