Tom Vourtsis - The Driver (self released, 2010)

Tom Vourtsis - Green


Tom Vourtsis did it right. He e-mailed me, complimenting AGB, talking about which posts he liked, what albums he bought because of reviews he read, and then told me he makes music, linking to his SoundCloud. Clearly, I'm going to at least give whatever he made a whole hearted listen with my full attention. And if it's good, I'm going to write a review where I basically cream my pants over it. Well, guess what...

The Driver is a wonderfully delicate work of clicky drone, with each of the 6 songs named after a color ("Chrome" is too a color, stfu). I'm not too good at the "This song makes me see this color" sort of thing (although my wife is the fuckin queen of that) so I'm not too sure if the colors he's ascribing to each song are appropriate, but I'm gonna just say yeah, they're totally appropriate, because why tf not.

The tunes are something of the Mountains/Eluvium/Hecker variety, although at the same time not quite like any of them. Lots of digital processing, but also super organic. Smooth blissful tones washing under everything, with little water bugs skimming across the surface creating the tiniest of ripples that catch the sun rays. Warm air drifts through the green canopy, just enough to rustle the leaves while raindrops trickle down the branches. Sweet euphoric mind candy.

But it ain't all flowers and rainbows, sometimes the rare bald eagle makes an appearance, fucking shit up and taking out some of the smaller birds, being as graceful and majestic as nature can be. Beauty in the macabre, glory in the static bath, harmony in the glitch.

So yes, The Driver is fucking incredible. Absolutely gorgeous ambience that will cleanse your regrets and free you of guilt. And did I mention it's free? It's free. Download it now and you'll be swimming in awesomeness as fast as your internet connection can allow.