James Opstad — Drift

Drift is the debut album from Stroud, UK-based composer James Opstad. It serves five varied and rewarding examples of modern chamber works- performed by Apartment House, GBSR duo, and Heather Roche.

Opstad was originally a bass player and comes from a jazz background. During the early 2010’s-he released work with projects such as Jack Davies' Flea Circus and duck-rabbit.  

The five chamber works featured here date from between the early to mid 2020’s, and I must say I’m very impressed with the quality of the material, which is moody, enchanting, and engaging in its use of timbre and counterpoint.

We move from “Study 2”, a just over seven-minute piece for violins, viola, and cello. It’s all about creating steadily seesawing- yet- slightly out of time layers string work- which shifts between being grandly forlorn, to sourly angular. Onto the nearly nine and half minutes of “Eluvium” which is for clarinet and resonating tam-tam. The track effectively blends playfulness and unease, with a rewarding feel of drifting/ altering pace.

But I’d say the highlight/centrepiece here is the twenty-two and a half minute title track. This is for piano, temple blocks and clarinet. The piece is built around interlocking patterns of starkly cascading keys, steady knocks, and flourishing clarinet tones. Over the piece's length, it becomes so wonderfully hypnotic in its weave. It feels like a slightly more mysterious and at times ritualistic/oddly unbalancing take on Morton Feldman. Yet Opstad also manages to embody his own sonic identity into the work too, and it's simply spellbinding stuff.

So all in all, Drift is an impressive first foray into modern classical chamber music from Mr Opstad, and I very much look forward to hearing what he does next. Another highlight in the  Another Timbre catalogue, and one of my picks for the best modern classical release of 2025- as I just keep returning to it again & again!.