The Driver by Carey

"'The Driver' by Carey is an energetic and muscular dance through the washing machine, letting every piece get saturated by ambiance and her brother chaos. Complexity is a brain inside of the heart of this genre, whether one calls it fusion, prog, math, or jazz, as it certainly defies any conventional heading; it is exciting and challenging music that doesn’t lose itself to the complexity. The instruments seem to tumble about and always fall on their feet. This allows the winds and keys to bloat, swell, and flex at any given moment. The album has a constant rhythm and current of arpeggios that allow whatever instrument rises to the fore to shine.

The sharp piano note that begins “You Never Answered Our Question” plays into the one-note mystery of drone music. The influence of drone and experimental has its fingerprints all over this record. However, there is too much movement in the periphery of every tone and instrument to be confused with such. The song quickly gives way to a fast moving arpeggio on the keys that allows the flute to shine again and again. The snap of the snare midway through keeps the song hip and jazzy.

Most of the record moves with strong keys and instrumentation. A distortion breaks in halfway through the record. But again, there is always something lingering in the background that gains attention, whether it's the back and forth of the sound effects or the oscillated and delayed knob twisting and turning in the end of “Yonder Something." It picks right back up in the next track, “The Dimmer The Lights.”

The final tracks are like a dream melting into one another. “Crown Shyness” uses vibes in the way The Kraken Quartet does, over a layer of guitar that leaks through the entire song, before bursting into a crescendo. This wraps up in a song that sees the vocals coming in and singing about restlessness and being “caught up in it”. The vocals work just like every other instrument on the record. Above the repetition of the keys and the wind instruments hammering out melodies and bursts of distortion, the vocals guide the listener through the performance.

A fitting conclusion for an album that gets the listener caught up in it. 'The Driver' has some commonalities with math rock bands like Delta Sleep or the grown up jazz/fusion band Monobody. It is a focused effort that should be heard by participants and listeners of every genre it touches upon, meaning the world over."

- Benjamin Champagne, Already Dead Tapes, 2019

All genre record label focused on small edition cassette, vinyl, and VHS releases.

Est. 2009

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