Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion

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This is a masterpiece, heavy, fun, mad, wild, inspiring, mind-blowing, massively deep though never precious, so many tangents somehow brought together with clarity and vision, love the idea of a left-hand path history, and the connections between the beginnings of the universe, ritual music and modern electronic rock is jaw-dropping.

Gysin, in particular, was captivated by the music, stating that it was the sound that he wanted to hear for the rest of his life. From the womb – where the rushing of maternal blood is heard loud and clear at 88 decibels – through myriad historical, spiritual and subcultural pathways, our connection to the drone runs deep. Has anybody ever produced music of such beauty, emotional depth and sheer mesmeric density from such sparse elements? Now in her 80s, Éliane Radigue has been at the forefront of avant-garde electronics since the 50s, when she worked as an engineer with Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry at Paris’s Studio d’Essai, the epicentre of musique concrète.In short, the drone has bewitched for millennia, exhorting us to succumb to the joy of hypnotic immersion.

The Master Musicians of Joujouka strongly contest the notion that drone-based music is calming: theirs is an energetic, frenetic sound. Much of her work has combined rich tones from machines such as the ARP and Buchla synthesiser with organ, harmonium and piano. Inspired by sacred spaces, the minimalist aesthetics of La Monte Young and Éliane Radigue – and her early access to an enviable selection of instruments and synths while working at the National Music Centre in Calgary – Davachi works in the electroacoustic sphere, augmenting rich organ drones with subtle electronic post production.Down-tuning to oblivion, each ringing chord drawn out for as long as possible, he obsessed over vintage valve amps and obscure pedals, the grain of the sound taking precedence over melodic progression. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

One of the most idiosyncratic electronic producers of recent years, the Canadian sound artist creates subtle drone pieces that fuse baroque atmospherics with the warm, idiosyncratic and sometimes unpredictable tonality of old analogue synths in combination with live instrumentation. In 1968, Jones recorded this live album, capturing the sound of the annual Bou Jeloud festivities that celebrate the appearance in the 15th century of a Pan-like half-man, half-goat figure said to bestow fertility, a bountiful harvest and musical secrets. Operating within the underground of the New York underground, MacLise produced obscure soundtracks, narcotised sonic sketches and lo-fi field recording tapestries between the mid-60s and late-70s, the vast majority unreleased until his soundtrack to Ira Cohen’s 1968 underground art film Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda saw the light of day in 1999, followed by a sprawling compilation, The Cloud Doctrine, in 2002. Inspired by the churning sludge of Melvins – the ceremonial majesty of the Washington band’s 1992 album Lysol, in particular – Earth’s Dylan Carlson took slowness in the metal sphere to hitherto unimagined extremes.A master of the process of creative reduction, she carves away any superfluous sound, noting frequency ratios on beautiful hand-drawn charts and arriving at an immersive sound sculpted to perfection. Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine is the centrepiece of Earth 2 – an imperious half-hour of sheer drone power. The soundtrack to Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda features all the beguiling hallmarks of MacLise’s sound: handheld drums, disembodied voices, field recordings of unknown provenance.

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