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Drone

Started by Smeraldina Rima, May 11, 2020, 04:51:40 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
Good things to put in this thread:

- your reviews of drone recordings or concerts
- favourite drone music disclosure
- drone mixtapes you have made or found
- good articles or documentaries about drone music
- personal selections such as: 5 cello drones; 10 drones from the 1970s; 5 dark ambient drones; 4 drones from Mexico
- general drone chat and bickering

On the one hand, you should not worry if your choice of repetitive/long/minimalist music is strictly speaking a drone music. On the other hand, remember that starting new threads is always encouraged, especially for new releases.




Cantus Orbis: Michael Tanner's 3 part series on Medieval drone music



This three part mix is one of my favourites to return to - thanks Michael Tanner - although I have not followed it up by listening to much other music by the artists included, besides Hildegard von Bingen. I would be interested to learn about other kinds of music before the 1960s which have similar musical qualities.


SpiderChrist

Love Hildegard Von Bingen, so cheers for this. My fave album of last year was Kali Malone's The Sacrificial Code.

Abnormal Palm

Loved the organ piece you posted in the other threads. I'll be back to those on when I've got a bit more time.

wosl

The one you posted in the other thread made me think of this: Yves Klein - Symphonie Monotone (1960).

Sin Agog

Think my favourite unfunky drone thang is Henry Flynt's You Are My Everlovin'/Celestial Power.  First heard about that guy in Julian Cope's write-up of his scratchy post-V.U. stint with a honky garage outfit called the Insurrections (he actually replaced Cale for a short tenure, in exchange for getting taught a few guitar chords by Lou Reed).  It's a kind of hillbilly raga consisting of two tantric 45-minute drones that never fail to engage me despite the fact that he's basically riffing on one note- overlaying a banjo and a guitar until it builds and builds.  It's that journeying aspect of Drone music which is its greatest strength.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G_2V8vnWT8

Second favourite?  Probably former Xpressway Records Kiwi indie musician Roy Montgomery's Fantasia on a Theme by [American Primitivist] Sandy Bull.  The version that appears on the comp Harmony of the Spheres, that is.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ0EYIAuOiU  Just love how heavenly it gets as the guitars start getting more densely layered.  Come to think of it, I wonder if there is a mild American Primitivist influence on a lot of Drone artists.  Certainly Robbie Basho taps into a similar cyclical, blissful vein.

Dewt


chveik


chveik

tbh I think Natural Snow Buildings makes everything else redundant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgWKcPQgNJQ

jobotic

Quote from: Dewt on May 11, 2020, 08:23:07 PM
So excited for this. Just the immense amount of culture and history involved


Same here.

Couple of favourites

Tony Conrad - Joan of Arc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b00vy9pF0CI

Vibracathedral Orchestra - got another I prefer to this but can't remember what it's called. Will have to have a root around upstairs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRYuKpI5KZQ

Polymorphia

I think my introduction to drone music was this legendary track by the legendary Sunn O))), Why Dost Thou Hide Thyself in Clouds?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCfu4XK3M_0
Fantastic organ drone and powerful vocals by Attila Csihar
Once played this on aux while doing house chores, and when I established my intent to stay around to listen to the whole thing despite finishing my chores, I was told (paraphrase) "So you'll just to one long note!"

The title also reminds me of my favourite Bible verses, Psalm 22, which I always found beautifully poetic despite being one of them atheists (here, KJV version, though other translations are still amazing with respect to this part):
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

jobotic

James Whitehead makes noise and drone as Jliat. This a lovely droney one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5yNOCZhv28

I like his crazy site. the Bikini tests recordings (I assume they aren't really) are invigorating short noise pieces.

http://www.jliat.com/

Nice electronic one from CM Von Hausswolff

https://touchradio.org.uk/touch_radio_74_cm_von_hausswolff.html

Quote from: Sin Agog on May 11, 2020, 08:20:08 PM
Think my favourite unfunky drone thang is Henry Flynt's You Are My Everlovin'/Celestial Power.  First heard about that guy in Julian Cope's write-up of his scratchy post-V.U. stint with a honky garage outfit called the Insurrections (he actually replaced Cale for a short tenure, in exchange for getting taught a few guitar chords by Lou Reed).  It's a kind of hillbilly raga consisting of two tantric 45-minute drones that never fail to engage me despite the fact that he's basically riffing on one note- overlaying a banjo and a guitar until it builds and builds.  It's that journeying aspect of Drone music which is its greatest strength.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G_2V8vnWT8

Second favourite?  Probably former Xpressway Records Kiwi indie musician Roy Montgomery's Fantasia on a Theme by [American Primitivist] Sandy Bull.  The version that appears on the comp Harmony of the Spheres, that is.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ0EYIAuOiU  Just love how heavenly it gets as the guitars start getting more densely layered.  Come to think of it, I wonder if there is a mild American Primitivist influence on a lot of Drone artists.  Certainly Robbie Basho taps into a similar cyclical, blissful vein.

Some piggybacking links for Robbie Basho and raga:

Getting Warmer w/ Jen Monroe - Robbie Basho Special



Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Chatur Lal ‎– India, Morning And Evening Ragas (1956)



Pandit Pran Nath - 21 VIII 76 NYC Raga Malkauns



La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela - The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath



Raga Vibrations - Pandit Pran Nath Tribute



Marcus Boon article on Pandit Pran Nath from The Wire
Lord of the Drone: Pandit Pran Nath and the American underground - Alexander Keefe

These articles tell the story of the effect that the tambura, Pandit Pran Nath's teaching and the records above had on La Monte Young, Henry Flynt and other American musicians.




"You are my everlovin'" is beautiful and I prefer this 'psychedelic' version of "Celestial Power" to the shorter version at the end of a Graduation and other new Country and Blues Music. Flynt also plays the electric violin on the title song from the recent Arthur Russell collection, Iowa Dream.

ASFTSN

Coil - Time Machines


jobotic

#14
Love this footage of Robbie Basho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmx_FAKogCM


For a song with a drone heart Fly High by Acid Mothers Temple is hard to beat. Much prefer this to their rock freak outs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0iVdHty5KY

(Fly High starts at about 11 minutes but the whole thing is good]

Might be pushing it here, and I don't know where I first heard this probably Late Junction or something. It's droney though. And reminds me a lot of Song to the Siren.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZlYcESO_XI


Sin Agog

Quote from: jobotic on May 12, 2020, 11:11:42 PM
Love this footage of Robbie Basho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmx_FAKogCM

Almost got whiplash when that hay talk broke into the peak of Kowaka. "All the hay that he buys is already bailed. It's in a stack, and he just buys the stack."

He looks much more straitlaced than the enlightened unibomber character I envisioned, but he's clearly no less spiritual for it.  Hundreds of channels and none of them getting performances like that. Would have been even better if Marcel Marceau had done an interpretive mime right next to him.

Harold Budd

The Oak of the Golden Dreams (1971)

The Oak of the Golden Dreams / Coeur d'Orr



Abandoned Cities (1984)

Dark Star / Abandoned Cities



Luxa (1996)

Time stamped "Nove Alberi"


timebug

Always loved (and still do!) 'No Pussyfooting' by Fripp and Eno. Marc put me on to it when he started his electronic music interest, and I went with a lot of his choices, but not all! This one though is sublime, if you like this kind of stuff.


Éliane Radigue

Vice Versa, etc.... (1970)



Quote"Vice-Versa, etc... is a minimal work which possesses an infinity of possible variations, a secret object containing the seeds of the oeuvre to come, and a discreet turning point linking the composer's two important working phases, an extremely subtle cross-fade between her feedback loop period to her ARP period.

"Originally, only ten signed and numbered copies of this little boxset containing a magnetic tape and a handwritten note were released - needless to say this is a work that has been nearly forgotten! We have decided to reissue this object as a double CD, with the tape played respectively forwards and backwards, at four different speeds, corresponding to the standards of the tape recorders of the time. This will allow dedicated listeners to experiment with simultaneous playback of the work's different versions, recreating the conditions of the original installation. For lazier listeners, a simple play through provides complete satisfaction, a listening experience that loses itself in the ineffable and discreet beauty of these four variations." ~ Manu Holterbach (translated by Maxime Guitton)

Feedback Works 1969-1970


spaghetamine



James Ferraro - Clear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cecVLsBaZLQ

Ferraro has put out quite a lot of stuff with a droney flavour, this is one of my faves. Inspired by scientology apparently.

jobotic

Charlemagne Palestine - Jamaica Heinekens in Brooklyn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8XJmJ-3XpE

Quote"Charlemagne Palestine made recordings of the Jamaica Day parade in New York City - where people from Jamaica, Guyana, Cuba, Haiti and other places come to dance, sing, eat and drink. These field recordings of shouting people, passing parade floats and helicopters hovering overhead are interwoven with the electronic sonorities. Together they give a completely new dimension to Charlemagne's work: Jamaica Heinekens in Brooklyn is colorful, exciting, trance enducing and it slowly unfolds into a magic experience." From Palestine's liner notes: "This work came out of the idea of traveling with an electronic drone on a ghetto blaster and re-recording it in different situations in many countries... the 60+ minute segment on this record is played without any editing, but super imposed upon this extract I have composed three series of drone textures of Yamaha organs, 16 Serge & Rubery oscillators with bandpass filtering, and a thick Arp synthesizer texture using oscillators, filters and other sound modulation devices. All together this work creates a dialogue between pure and mixed electronics of my long continuum tradition and the real-time ambient sounds of a traditional urban ethnographic popular festival."

I've been listening to a couple of Charlemagne Palestine organ pieces with method similar to Occam XXV for depressing keys. The most aggressive Strasbourg Cathedral one is my favourite of the two below. I'll listen to Jamaica Heinekens in Brooklyn tomorrow. I was upset by your light criticism of Acid Mothers Temple; saw them last year playing the rockier freak outs around "Pink Lady Lemonade" in a community centre in Digbeth and lost my mind.

Charlemagne Palestine ‎– Cathédrale De Strasbourg (2016)



Charlemagne Palestine - Schlingen-Blängen (1999) Click to enlarge liner notes from discogs:



Folke Rabe

Folke Rabe - Was?? / Bo Anders Persson - Proteinimperialism (1970)



A few years ago, Will Oldham brought some new listeners to Folke Rabe when he recommended "Was??" as one of his favourite pieces of uplifting drone music (along with the dark ambient music of Deathprod).  Rabe has not made very much electronic music besides "Was??" which was released with Bo Anders Persson's "Proteinimperialism" in 1970 as the A and B side of a Stockholm electronic radio studio record on Wergo. In an interview for Sonoloco, he explains how he fell into it:

QuoteWas?? was a commission from the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation. We were invited to attend a course at EMS, and this was a kind of examination piece. It was meant to be a short incident, but it became the longest work I've done, about 25 minutes.[...] The piece Was?? almost had the pedagogic intention to sharpen the listening, and Joe's Harp is in a way a kind of ear practice for choir singers, to make them aware of the pulsations that occur when singing in intervals placed close by each other, or when making minute deviations from a sound.

"Was??" was released separately with normal and half speed (octave lower) versions in 1997.



This interesting review on Caleb Deupree's drone classics blog makes comparisons between Folke Rabe's experimentation in state sponsored strict electronic music in the late 1960s in Sweden with Éliane Radigue's in France; and between the gradual processing of speech in "Proteinimperialism" and Alvin Lucier's I am Sitting in a Room (1969).

QuoteBack in the vinyl days, the Wergo label was a treasure trove for new music fanatics, and for a while I picked up everything on the label I could find. One of these Wergo releases was probably the first drone record I ever heard, a split record with two productions from the Electronic Studio of Swedish Radio, Stockholm, Folke Rabe's Was?? (What??) and Bo Anders Persson's Proteinimperialism. Each piece occupied one side of the LP. Both pieces are long and static and date from 1967, but they sound much less dated than most electronic works from the period, and completely different from the usual Darmstadt-oriented Wergo productions.

Persson's work is more of a loop experience than a drone, although it ends up sounding a lot like Alvin Lucier's landmark piece I Am Sitting In A Room. Inspired by the work of Terry Riley, the piece is basically the two words "imperialism" and "protein", strung together and run in a loop for twenty-five minutes, subjected to layering, reverberation, echo, various filtering and other sundry sound altering devices that were available in 1967. Although the words are comprehensible at the beginning of the piece, they mutate into its resonant frequencies by the midpoint, becoming clear again by the end. 1967 was an extremely political time, and Persson chose the words in response to imperialistic food practices from the big Western grain companies.

In the late 1960s, Persson was the guitarist in a trance-rock group Pärson Sound, whose long drone jams recall the classic krautrock groups Faust and Can. Live recordings from 1967 and 1968 surfaced a few years ago on CD, also available on emusic. Pärson Sound evolved through a few other incarnations to end up as Träd, Gräs och Stenar (Trees, Grass and Stones), whose glory years were in the early 1970s but who still concertizes periodically. In the last decade or so, they have played to support guitarist Oren Ambarchi and Japanese freak-out group Acid Mothers Temple, touring with the latter in Japan. Persson, born in 1937, has recently retired from the band that occupied so much of his musical energies. Proteinimperialism was his only foray into sound composition, and is unacknowledged on any of the web sites relating to Persson's rock bands.

Rabe's piece is a more pure drone, and for various reasons, has had a more favorable reception history. For one thing, Rabe was more active in electronic and classical music than Persson, serving on the staff of the Swedish Institute for National Concerts and the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation for more than thirty years. He plays jazz trombone and operates as a freelance composer, with several choral, instrumental and symphonic compositions to his credit. He also toured What?? at various times over the years, and in 1997, Dexter's Cigar, a reissue label curated by David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke, reissued the piece on CD. The reissue included not only What?? its original form, but also a half-speed version, and therefore twice as long, that Rabe used occasionally in performance.

At first hearing, What?? moves in similar sound worlds to Eliane Radigue. Both composers use electronic sound generation to maintain a purity of tone that is completely different from field recording drone artists like Michael Northam and Jonathan Coleclough. They are both from the same generation (Radigue born in 1932, Rabe in 1935), and they both have connections to the early state-sponsored electronic music studios in Europe. Both composers examine miniscule changes unfolding over long periods of time and were inspired by such practices in non-Western music. But while Radigue's work focuses on meditational aspects, Rabe's work, while not oblivious to the peaceful nature of the results, is specifically harmonic, melding enharmonic partials to reinforce their inner hierarchies and produce certain sonic illusions. Each overtone in What?? is individually composed, resulting in a shimmering mobile of sound, climaxing in a glorious chord that fills the harmonic spectrum, with the higher partials gaining prominence for the first time in the piece. The half-speed version operates like a fractal, permitting a closer examination of the details in the original, but at the same time exposing a completely different set of sonic crevices.

jobotic

Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on May 17, 2020, 12:07:14 AM
I was upset by your light criticism of Acid Mothers Temple; saw them last year playing the rockier freak outs around "Pink Lady Lemonade" in a community centre in Digbeth and lost my mind.



Wasn't really a criticism, just praise for the less rocky output. That said, that's on record - I've seen them a couple of times, although years ago, and enjoyed the freak outs a lot!

Your last post was great. Didn't know that record at all. Lovely stuff.

I won't mis-characterise your relationship with the freak outs of Acid Mothers Temple again.

John Cale



Sun Blindness Music (1967) Cale - Vox Continental organ
The Second Fortress (1968) Cale - Vox Continental organ

Dream Interpretation (1969) Cale - Viola; Tony Conrad - Violin

The organ pieces remind me of later glitch music by Fennesz. The last one with Tony Conrad is my favourite.

Hanky Panky Nohow (Drone Version) (1973) Bonus track from Paris 1919



"Loop" by The Velvet Underground - or John Cale again really - was included on a flexidisc in Aspen, "the multimedia magazine in a box" (1965-1971), in the pop art issue designed by Andy Warhol and David Dalton in 1966. A lot of the items in it relate to drone music.

Item 6: A side: Peter Walker - White Wind / B side: John Cale - Loop

QuoteToday, pop music is adventuring in all directions. Influenced by Indian raga music, the amplifiers are coming off some guitars and more strings are being put on — as in this record, where western instruments are used in an eastern manner, producing "American folk raga."    

Peter Walker
White Wind
Peter Walker, Guitar; Monty Dunn, Drums; Bruce Longhorne, Bass Tambourine; Alex Lukeman, 12-String Drone
6 mins. 18 secs.

On the electronic front, there's the free-wheeling manipulation of dials in control rooms; sub-sonic sounds that you feel, not hear; machine noises; feedback; tape echo; anything!   

Velvet Underground
Loop
John Cale, Guitar and Feedback
7 mins. 14 secs.

Peter Walker - Rainy Day Raga (1966)



Item 3: Lou Reed - The View From the Bandstand

QuoteRepetition is so fantastic, anti-glop. Listening to a dial tone in Bb, until American Tel & Tel messed and turned it into a mediocre whistle, was fine. Short waves minus an antenna give off various noises, band wave pops and drones, hums, that can be tuned at will and which are very beautiful. Eastern music is allowed to have repetition. That's ok for glops with strawhats and dulcimers between their blue legs... they don't listen to it, or see it, but they sanction it. Andy Warhol's movies are so repetitious sometimes, so so beautiful. Probably the only interesting films made in the U. S. Rock-and-roll films. Over and over and over. Reducing things to their final joke. Which is so pretty.

Item 5: The View from the Dancefloor - Bob Chamberlain

QuoteAND IT'S ALL OKAY... even when it begins to accelerate, led by the band, who are now suddenly into a screaming electronic Raga that makes everyone want to keep their feet from touching the floor, but still the rhythm accelerates until the notes pile up on each other in a painful dissonant chaos and people feel it but urge it on and on with shaking heads and pounding feet and suddenly they shake it all loose into a whole new idea, a faster, higher level rhythm... and still the rhythm gets faster and faster and again the notes begin to pile up and as they merge, the drone, the steady continuous electronic scream of one note, takes over more and more until finally everyone is dancing to a single unbroken tone, whose only possible rhythm is the absolutely pure oscillation which IS the electric sound wave of that frequency then suddenly it's over, and in the hardbreathing pause of recuperation and exclama tion, the only sound is a great sweating animal sighing in the wonder of release...

then maybe as the band tunes up again you hear a voice, a new one, speaking in incredibly clear tones through one of the mikes, saying, "...hey, all you people out there, I love all you people out there...", and as you turn and listen you hear how utterly relaxed and unhurried the voice is and how it seems to come right from the vocal chords without any attempt at modulation, and it's saying,"...it happened this afternoon out on Muir Beach and in the surf, and it happened earlier tonight at the Fillmore... ",, it's dead quiet now and everybody is listening, "...so I know we can do it here, tonight, right now...", and as the band starts out quiet and slow, " . . . it's so easy, all you have to do is just reach out, just reach out in any direction, it doesn't make any difference...", people are doing it, the band is picking it up, "...all you've gotta do is just re-e-a-ch o-u-t

Item 8: 12 Paintings from the Powers' Collection


Black Map by Jasper Johns

Here are the ten Aspen boxes in the Whitechapel gallery (Pop Art issue 3 in the middle on the top row):



You can read through and play the contents of all the boxes at UbuWeb.


NoSleep

Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on May 12, 2020, 06:01:56 PM
Marcus Boon article on Pandit Pran Nath from The Wire
Lord of the Drone: Pandit Pran Nath and the American underground - Alexander Keefe

These articles tell the story of the effect that the tambura, Pandit Pran Nath's teaching and the records above had on La Monte Young, Henry Flynt and other American musicians.




"You are my everlovin'" is beautiful and I prefer this 'psychedelic' version of "Celestial Power" to the shorter version at the end of a Graduation and other new Country and Blues Music. Flynt also plays the electric violin on the title song from the recent Arthur Russell collection, Iowa Dream.

Nice to see La Monte Young and Henry Flynt getting a mention on here; both firm favourites.

Have you listened to any of the music by Catherine Christer Hennix, who has also worked with Henry Flynt? Both of the following make use of microtonal scales and she is another pupil of Pandit Pran Nath.

The Electric Harpsichord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXxobmct4xY

Blues Alif Lam Mim In The Modes Of Rag Infinity/ Rag Cosmosis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDvR0Vn8pYQ

More microtonal goodness with Michael Harrison (another Pandit Pran Nath pupil), who has advised and assisted La Monte Young in the past, and is the only other person to have played The Well Tuned Piano, has a couple of recent pieces that probably count as versions of one another but were executed in cooperation with two different performers:

Clarice Jensen performs Michael Harrison's Cello Constellations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZusT6sNhu0M

Mari Kimura: Harmonic Constellations (Michael Harrison): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs484-vc1Ek&list=OLAK5uy_luGV1A697l3L8iI3XSFtXfQncLEsov474&index=6

popcorn

Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on May 11, 2020, 04:51:40 PM
Good things to put in this thread:

- your reviews of drone recordings or concerts

Drones by Muse: shite.

Not listened to Catherine Christer Hennix much. I liked the Early Keyboard Works release from a couple of years ago but failed to get into the Deontic Miracle and some others. I will try again with those links. Thanks.

Famous Mortimer

#29
JLIAT has a bunch of free drones on his site, and they're pretty good. http://www.jliat.com/drones/drones.html

I spent the time at home sorting through all my mp3 collection. I've discovered that the drone stuff is the stuff that's held my interest the most, of all the re-listens - I can't listen to (song from random band who John Peel loved) any more, but I'll happily play "The Well-Tuned Piano" all the way through.

All the stuff that's really interested me in recent years has been in this thread - Kali Malone is amazing, and she's done a couple of mixes for different digital platforms that are pretty good too, including one for Vanity Fair France. https://kalimalone.com/index.php/music/ It's weird having people whose music I really like be active and producing stuff right now. I keep forgetting to check or follow and find out I've missed an album, or a mix, or whatever.

The thing I first fell in love with in this line of things was "Dreamweapon", the Spacemen 3 album (I think it might even have been the first thing of theirs I ever heard). The main song was interesting, but it was "Ecstasy In Slow Motion"  I really enjoyed. I remember excitedly taking it round to my friend's house, who did some DJing, and him listening to it and going "you know this is just one note, right? Why are you listening to this?" But he did give me a bunch of Aphex Twin vinyl when he got bored, so I can't be too upset with him.

I never really got super-into Henry Flynt, I think it was reading his Wikipedia page which annoyed me for some reason (perhaps I saw "personhood theory" and assumed it was something stupid) but anyway, hearing the music linked above with a fresh set of ears really got me. So then I was reading Julian Cope's review of one of his records, and he mentioned

Quotethe obnoxious and obsessively listenable genius of Takeshisa Kosugi's majestic 1975 proto-Martin Rev Ur-drone CATCH WAVE

so I popped that on, and I'm listening to it right now. First few minutes are decent?