Orlando FitzGerald - Slow Drift (LP)

Where To Now? are proud to present the new album from Irish born, NY based Orlando FitzGerald. Previously recording as ‘Orlando’, FitzGerald has released music via ‘Local Action’, ‘Gobstopper’, and All City affiliated label ‘First Second’. Where Orlando’s previous works have focused on the dance floor, here we see a pivot towards a Cello led sound which embraces experimentation, space, and solitude. FitzGerald's approach to music is born from punk, and he carries this DIY approach towards the weighty world of the Cello. With no formal training FitzGerald instead takes an intuitive approach, quietly seeking out expression and treating his sounds to create a unique basin of tension, warmth, and paced release. With percussive contributions from Matthew Byas (of Phony Ppl), restrained Sax skronk from the brilliant Kate Mohanty, synth work from Evan Shornstein (also known as Photay), and vocals from none other than NY Post-Punk legend Anna Domino, FitzGerald has created a cinematic record that moves between worlds of unnerving dread, and lush, hopeful melancholy. ‘Slow Drift’ opens with the unsettling ‘Infinite Life’, where layered Cello and Sax murmur set the scene and accompanying bass rattle evokes the feeling of mechanical motor drift. This melding of the mechanical and organic will become a central theme to the album. ‘Anticipate The Heat’ follows, with the album's most Jazzwise moment - where Byas' scattered hand drums punctuate Mohanty’s mellow flutters. ‘Wind’ is where we find Orlando at his most cinematic and melodic, presenting a serene, bubbling movement where hushed picking and restrained playing recalls the quiet ambience of Helios, or the melancholy of Bruce Langhorne at his most desert swept, staring into an endless horizon. ‘Unfolding’ opens with Anna Domino’s unmistakably fragile, sensual, and affecting vocals, for which the Cello compliments in call and response fashion, allowing Anna’s vocals to lead, creating a moment which appears to explore themes of regeneration, loss, and hope - which again, is refracted and responded to by Orlando. Next we have a triptych of ‘Grid’ movements, which continue to explore the above themes, drifting between meditative minimalism and abstract discordance with hypnotic effect - Orlando approaches these pieces with such considered interplay, fully embracing space, silence, and cyclical repetition to create a devastatingly emotive, and desolate landscape, which continuously attempts to regain focus, yearning for stillness. Finally the album ends with 'One' a meditation on wholeness and unity where moody, yet serene guitars balance wailing cello.