The Drivers - Beloved
TDR # 001 - IDC Cat # 0061
Hailing from Chicago and Iowa City, John and May Driver met, married and began collaborating sometime in the last half decade. While they’d always shared a common love for music, visual art, and each other, it took a pivotal event to bring them to their current, potent incarnation. They formed "The Drivers" after their return flight from Mexico City nearly crashed in a torrid wind storm. How clear things seem after such an experience. All of the day-to-day sort of moves to the periphery and then you’re left with what really matters" said May Driver in an interview given earlier this year. "It took us some time to learn how to work together. I think we intimidated each other said John Driver in the same interview. As they describe it, The Drivers went home, unredeemably altered from that chilling flight and started writing the beginnings of what would become their first album, Beloved.
The Drivers accredit a significant number of musical influences including Portishead, Patsy Cline, Tricky, Sinead O’Conner, Richard James, Bjork, The Ramones and even Billy Holiday. They freely mix these influential echoes, creating an alchemical mélange of sound, text and texture. Layers of May’s rich vocals interweave between booming electronic percussion and rhythm. Heavy guitar sounds offset elusive synths and samples. Beneath and around it all, highly effected melodic guitars interbraid and swell. Beloved was recorded at three studios throughout the Midwest and the Drivers are solely responsible for everything but the final master. John affirms that "their technical expertise and attention to detail borders on the obsessive . "It was essential to us that this first record was totally polished" said May. They actually delayed its release twice at personal cost to themselves to correct minor details in the mix and refused to perform at any venues until the record had been pressed and shipped.
Beloved, the breakthrough debut from The Drivers, is the result of a 4-year writing and producing collaboration between the groups’ key members, May and John Driver. Touting vocal influences as diverse as Patsy Cline, Sinead O’Connor, and Beth Gibbons, May’s powerful, emotive voice etches her deeply personal and enigmatic lyrics into the heart of the listener from the first verse to the last outro. Accompanied by her husband, John, who’s deep drum-and-bass beats, ambient synths, and U2-esque guitar playing compose the musical foundation of this transcendental diary, May presents the listener with 14 tracks of love, self doubt, adversity, rapture, and actualization which hook you in, hold you and keep you. This disc will live in your cd player for weeks, simultaneously shaking you out of your daily trance while charming you into a vivid delirium.
Track Listing:
1. Above
2. Airport 98
3. Sugar
4. Pinch
5. Red Shoes
6. Safe
7. Gasoline
8. Satellite
9. Fire
10. Anna
11. All Day
12. Home
13. Hero
14. World Stops
Check out more titles from Uh Huh Records at
www.the-drivers.com
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