Taking reflective piano to the quiet dance club

When Steve Gibbs released Adrift back in 2014, I gave it a glowing review as it was a masterful collection of emotive contemporary classical tracks that really dug into your mind. Returning to Adrift several years later, Reworks is interesting because each person that is remixing a track is also placing their own contemporary classical mind and feeling onto the original works – these are all composers whom also have had at least one toe in classical music before too.

“Patterns (Cyrus Reynolds Remix)” is wonderfully put together as the strings are chopped up and gradually fade into pianos. It’s just as emotive and affecting as it was before. “Adrift (Ryan Davis Remix)” places a beat and makes a percussive track out of loads of ambient noises that appear to come from everyday objects and tasks. Stretching the track out to seven minutes means that the slow rumbling of percussion and synths start to creep up on you in a chilled out version of a hedonistic dance anthem. The pianos are also stripped of their bass too which I always find makes them sound ultra delicate so when the synths come in to rise up the chord progressions, it feels cathartic. “Patterns (Fejka Remix)” follows a similar vein initially but isn’t afraid to start warping some of the main piano key melodies and then push home the electronica elements into a trance anthem. It’s perfect for the 2 am afterglow on a dance floor, lights are low and the mood is cuddle and reflect. “Low Light (evolv Remix)” is the darkest of the remixes and focuses on ambient noises and frequency filtering to make each piano hammer emit some white noise whilst guitar feedback gently reverse reverbs over the top of the melody. It’s abstract and it feels very, very empty and cold against the warm melody the piano is trying to convey. Lastly “Patterns (Manos Milonakis Remix)” is like a moulding of the two composers’ mind together. Manos already makes post-classical music where synths and the occasional nod to post-rock creeps in and this remix gently nods in that direction to but stays much more in the electronica space. It’s another strong remix and rounds off the EP perfectly.

Remix albums are always difficult to judge. Adrift is still an absolutely stunning release, and whilst I would still recommend the original over the reworks, if you enjoy your piano-based contemporary classical music and fancy changing it up a bit, there’s plenty of great remixes here to get you in the chill out mood.

Recommended track: “Patterns (Cyrus Reynolds Remix)”

If you like what I do, and would like to help me make better and more content then please consider supporting me via Patreon. Thank you.

If you have this release, you can comment with your own score below.