You know the fill – you wait for it each time ‘In The Air Tonight’ plays at the pub, and you nail the air-drums every time. You nod with recognition at others around the room who also air-drum during that part. They nod back. You rush over to a flat surface to put your drink down, as this is a fill that requires both hands, and excessive shoulder effort. You commit to that drum-fill. It might be the most iconic drum-fill of all time.
Joseph Prein certainly thinks so, which is why he has turned it into a sprawling avant-garde musical piece, 70 minutes of pure Phil.
He achieved this masterwork by looping the fill and layering it three times. He then slowed one down by 0.1% and speed one up by 0.1%, resulting in an interesting delay which expands and fills as time goes on, bending into a cacophony that shifts as the three tracks slow sway in and out of time.
It’s hypnotic – and a little annoying. Play it loud on the bus home.
