Dan Rumour & The Drift – Dan Rumour & The Drift

By Chris Peken

In the mid-Eighties then Sekret Sekret guitarist Dan Rumour used to do impromptu gigs between gigs with whomever was available and play sets of instrumentals, from the likes of Booker T &The MG’s, The Ventures and Lee Scratch Perry. When Sekret Sekret split he decided to make this a more permanent group and formed The Cruel Sea with drummer Jim Elliot. The Cruel Sea played in this instrumental form for almost a year before singer Tex Perkins approached Rumour with the idea of adding lyrics to their music – another iconic Australian band was thus launched. Move forward almost two decades and Rumour and Elliot (along with Mick Turner and Nick Larkins form Wild Pumpkins at Midnight) have gone back to the genesis of The Cruel Sea and formed the instrumental Dan Rumour & The Drift. This eponymous album is not so much a debut as a revival of an idea. Comprising re-recorded versions of some great old friends like Seems Twice, Four, and Sly Din (all with 07 added to their title) along with some new classics. The re-recorded Cruel Sea tunes are not so much re-worked as finessed by Rumour and company, the arrangements remaining true to the original recordings, the players just that little more skilled, like old lovers reunited, with that intimate knowledge of just the right caress in an all new way. The new tracks sit with confidence alongside these classics; the bright and breezy Unwind all cool, ocean breeze and sea change, and Playtime evokes the aforementioned Booker T with its organ and guitar interplay. Dan Rumour and the Drift – the band and the album are a comfortable flow of what is familiar and what is new. They are a weather–board beach house, wooden floor boards, sand on the mat and sun on the verandah.

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