If there’s nothing you can be certain of more, then it’s that whatever your circumstances there will always be plenty of advice you don’t need.
Mostly drummer for The Coral, Ian Skelly began the process of recording Drifters Skyline whilst dealing with personal loss and its attendant emotions; instead of burying his head in a self-help book however, the choice was to relocate for a few days to Berlin with producer and muse Paul McKinnel, where a new joy was discovered in the process. Smiling on the outside, Skelly explained: ‘Pouring your sad heart out on a song is self-indulgent…What should have been work in the studio turned out to be a jolly’.
The approach, it seems, could’ve been encapsulated in the title Laugh To Keep Me From Crying, but nothing’s forced here, opener Captain Caveman one misplaced chord away from tiki lounge chintz, the words a disarming stream of consciousness: ‘Sha Lang, Sha Lang/Oogum Boogum, Rolling Stones/Flying Burritos and Country Joe/Watch Captain Caveman save the day’.
Skelly has admitted that the whirlwind creative process (these songs were written in a frenetic seven day period) has caused him to only now realise where the inspirations came from. And with them recorded straight to tape without practice or demos, it’s hard not to get carried away with some of the spontaneous happiness, bubbling most on the gentle country rock of Jokerman, the sort of melodic response to despair (‘All of my sorrows have come today’) that just shrugs and makes the best of it.
At times the ambience is so light as to be almost pastiche – Travelling Mind so intangible as to almost be nothing, even featuring a bus stop whistle – and at just around two minutes long, Over The Moon is folksy and whimsical but over before it begins.
If the first half continues in this largely eddying stasis, those expecting a little more heft will be much happier as time passes, the Hawaiian shirt grooves gradually evaporating as Skelly, McKinnell and engineer Paul Pilot – adding keyboards – move confidently through the gears. In this place, both the vintage sound of his regular band and the harder psychedelic edge of Liverpool cult heroes The Stairs and Clinic are made whole again, Spirit Plane a reverb heavy glance at darkness and closer Wake The World a rasping desert blues odyssey, while the standout title-track is part 60’s espionage theme tune, part kaleidoscopic poetry lesson from behind the curtain.
Not paying attention to what they tell you is the right thing to do has its upside; rather than create misery to share, on Drifters Skyline Ian Skelly has sped up to a canter and made up all his own rules.
It’s a deliberate world of make believe, but everyone you meet there has some way of keeping you entertained.
