Drone music
Encyclopedia
Drone music is a minimalist music
al style that emphasizes the use of sustain
ed or repeated
sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drone
s. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics. La Monte Young
, one of its 1960s originators, defined it in 2000 as "the sustained tone branch of minimalism".
Drone music is also known as drone-based music, drone ambient or ambient drone, dronescape or the modern alias dronology, and often simply as drone.
Explorers of drone music since the 1960s have included Theater of Eternal Music (aka The Dream Syndicate: La Monte Young
, Marian Zazeela
, Tony Conrad
, Angus Maclise
, John Cale
, et al.), Charlemagne Palestine
, Eliane Radigue
, Philip Glass
, Kraftwerk
, Klaus Schulze
, Tangerine Dream
, Sonic Youth
, The Velvet Underground
, Robert Fripp
&
Brian Eno
, Steven Wilson
, Kyle Bobby Dunn
, Robert Rich
, Steve Roach, Earth
, Rhys Chatham
, Coil
, If Thousands
, John Cage
, Labradford
, Lawrence Chandler
, Stars of the Lid
, Sonic Boom
, Phill Niblock
, Sheila Chandra
, Hwyl Nofio
, Janek Schaefer
and Sunn O)))
.
s and is rhythmically still or very slow, called "drone music", can be found in many parts of the world, including bagpipe traditions, among them Scottish pibroch
piping; didgeridoo
music in Australia, South Indian classical carnatic music
and Hindustani classical music
(which is accompanied almost invariably by the tambura
, a four-string instrument which is only capable of playing a drone); the sustained tones found in the Japanese gagaku
classical tradition; possibly (disputed) in pre-polyphonic organum
vocal music of late medieval Europe; and the Byzantine chant's ison
(or drone
-singing, attested after the fifteenth century). Repetition of tones, supposed to be in imitation of bagpipes, is found in a wide variety of genres and musical forms. However, the lineage of stillness and long tones occurring in classical
compositions during adagio movements, including, for instance, the third movement of Anton Webern
's Five Small Pieces for Orchestra, as well as in Northern European folk musics in the form of "slow airs" has directly descended into modern popular and electronic music.
The modern genre also called drone music (called "dronology" by some books, labels and stores, to differentiate it from ethnic drone-based music) is often applied to artists who have allied themselves closely with underground music
and the post-rock
or experimental music
genres. Drone music also fits into the genres of found sound, minimalist music
, dark ambient
, drone doom/drone metal, and noise music
. Most often utilizing electronic instruments or electronic processing of acoustic instruments, they typically create dense and unmoving harmonies and a stilled or "hovering" sense of time. While the hallmarks of drone music are easy to recognize, the backgrounds and goals of the artists vary greatly.
Pitchfork Media
and Allmusic journalist Mark Richardson defined it thus: "The vanishing-point music created by drone elders Phill Niblock and, especially, LaMonte Young is what happens when a fixation on held tones reaches a tipping point. Timbre is reduced to either a single clear instrument or a sine wave, silence disappears completely, and the base-level interaction between small clusters of "pure" tone becomes the music's content. This kind of work takes what typically helps us to distinguish "music" from "sound," discards nearly all of it, and then starts over again from scratch."
As summarized in a review, "Drone music is about as far away from music as you can get before it stops being music [...] In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was oooooommmmmmm. God was, apparently, a drone music pioneer, and there is something religious about this music... or rather, something spiritual."
, fascinated with "the sound of the wind blowing", the "60 cycle per second drone" of "step-down transformers on telephone poles", the tanpura drone and the alap
of Indian classical music
, "certain static aspects of serialism
, as in the Webern
slow movement of the Symphony Opus 21", and Japanese gagaku
"which has sustained tones in it in the instruments such as the Sho", started writing music incorporating sustained tones in 1957 with the middle section of Four Brass, then in 1958 what he describes as "the first work in the history of music that is completely composed of long sustained tones and silences" with Trio for Strings, before exploring this drone music within the Theater of Eternal Music that he founded in 1962.
The Theater of Eternal Music is a multi-media performance group who, in its 1960s–1970s heyday included at various times La Monte Young
, Marian Zazeela
, Tony Conrad
, Angus MacLise
, Terry Jennings, John Cale
, Billy Name
, Jon Hassell
, Alex Dea and others, each from various backgrounds (classical composition and performance, painting, mathematics, poetry, jazz, etc.). Operating from the world of lofts and galleries in New York in the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies in particular, and tied to the aesthetics of Fluxus
and the post-John Cage
-continuum, the group gave performances on the East Coast of the United States as well as in Western Europe comprised long periods of sensory innundation with combinations of harmonic relationships, which moved slowly from one to the next by means of "laws" laid out by Young regarding "allowable" sequencies and simultaneities, perhaps in imitation of Hindustani classical music
which he, Zazeela and the others either studied or at least admired. The group released nothing during their lifetime (although Young and Zazeela issued a collaborative LP in 1969, and Young contributed in 1970 one side of a flexi-disc accompanying Aspen magazine
). The concerts themselves were influential on their own upon the art world including Karlheinz Stockhausen
(whose Stimmung
bears their influence most strikingly) and the drone-based minimalist works of dozens of other composers many of whom made parallel innovations including Young classmate Pauline Oliveros
, or Eliane Radigue
, Charlemagne Palestine
, Yoshi Wada
, Phill Niblock
and many others. Then group member John Cale
went on to extend and popularize this work into 1960s rock music with the Velvet Underground (along with songwriter Lou Reed
).
In 2000, La Monte Young wrote: "[About] the style of music that I originated, I believe that the sustained tone branch of minimalism, also known as “drone music,” is a fertile area for exploration."
" on their first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) laid the foundation for drone music as a rock music genre in close proximity to the art-world project of the Theatre of Eternal Music. Cale's departure from the group in 1968 blurred matters considerably, as Reed continued to play primitive figures (sometimes in reference to R&B), while Cale went quickly on to produce the Stooges
' debut (1969), including his viola drone on the track "We Will Fall" and Nico
's The Marble Index (1969) which also included Cale's viola drone on "Frozen Warnings". Later, Lou Reed
issued in 1975 a double LP of multi-tracked electric-guitar feedback titled Metal Machine Music
which listed (misspelling included) "Drone cognizance and harmonic possibilities vis a vis Lamont Young's Dream Music" among its "Specifications".
, the most popular and influential group of the 1960s, include drones. Drawing on George Harrison's studies and friendship with Hindustani classical sitarist, Ravi Shankar
, from 1966's Love You To
through 1967's The Inner Light
, many of Harrison's compositions include the tambura
, an instrument dedicated in Indian music to harmonic stasis. John Lennon's Tomorrow Never Knows
, a quasi-mystical song based around text from the Tibetan Book of the Dead also includes the tambura and is sung around a pedal-point drone, as in medieval Western liturgical music.
, Neu!
and Faust
drew from the heritage of experimental sixties rock like the Beatles at their most collagic and jamming as well as from composers like Stockhausen and La Monte Young
. These groups became influential on art-rock contemporaries in their own day and punk-rock and post-punk players subsequently. Tony Conrad, of the Theater of Eternal Music, notably made a collaborative LP with Faust which included nothing but two sides of complex violin drones accompanied only by a single note on bass guitar and a bloody-minded percussion accompaniment. Single-note bass-lines were also featured on Can's track "Mother Sky" (album Soundtracks
, 1970) and the entirety of Die Krupp's first album (1979).
with his 1964 In C
and who had become a disciple, along with Young and Zazeela, of the Hindustani classical singer Pandit Pran Nath
. In parallel, then-Krautrock band Tangerine Dream
and their recently departed member Klaus Schulze
both moved toward a more contemplative and consonant harmonic music, each releasing their own drone music album on the label Ohr in August 1972 (Zeit
and Irrlicht
, respectively). Meanwhile, as increasingly elaborate studio technology was born during the seventies, Brian Eno
, an alumn of the glam/art-rock band Roxy Music
postulated ambient music
(drawing, in part from John Cage and his antecedent Erik Satie
's 1910s concept of furniture music
, in part from minimalists such as La Monte Young) as "able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting". While his late seventies ambient tape-music recordings are not drone music, his acknowledgment of Young ("the daddy of us all") and his influence on later drone music made him an undeniable link in the chain.
, Coil
, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive
, The Jesus and Mary Chain
, Ride
, Loop
(who covered Can's "Mother Sky") Brian Jonestown Massacre (Methodrone album) and Spacemen 3
(who used a text by Young
for the liner notes to their record Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music
, a live 45-minute drone piece), for instance reasserted the influence of the Velvet Underground and its antecedents in their use of overwhelming volume and hovering sounds, even as they asserted rockish and propulsive rhythms. Sonic Youth
uses a large number of guitars with alternate tunings to emphasise the drone in almost all of their songs. They also quite often prolong notes in their song structures to add more droning in their song. Pelt and Charalambides
expanded them further still while referring to eighties and nineties noise music
, Metal Machine Music
-derived performers like Merzbow
, C.C.C.C., and KK Null
.
, Eliane Radigue
and La Monte Young
are still active and continute to work exclusively in long, sustained tones. Improvisors like Hototogisu
and Sunroof! play nothing but sustained fields which are close to drones. Sunn O)))
, a drone metal band, almost exclusively plays sustained tone pieces, and their peers Merzbow
and Boris
released a collaborative 62-minute drone piece called Sun Baked Snow Cave
in 2005.
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
al style that emphasizes the use of sustain
Sustain
In music, sustain is a parameter of musical sound over time. As its name implies, it denotes the period of time during which the sound remains before it becomes inaudible, or silent.Additionally, sustain is the third of the four segments in an ADSR envelope...
ed or repeated
Repetition (music)
Repetition is important in music, where sounds or sequences are often repeated. One often stated idea is that repetition should be in balance with the initial statements and variations in a piece. It may be called restatement, such as the restatement of a theme...
sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drone
Drone (music)
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
s. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics. La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
, one of its 1960s originators, defined it in 2000 as "the sustained tone branch of minimalism".
Drone music is also known as drone-based music, drone ambient or ambient drone, dronescape or the modern alias dronology, and often simply as drone.
Explorers of drone music since the 1960s have included Theater of Eternal Music (aka The Dream Syndicate: La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
, Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela is a light-artist, designer, painter and musician based in New York City.-Life and work:Born to Russian-Jewish parents and raised in the Bronx, Marian Zazeela was educated at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and at Bennington College where she...
, Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
, Angus Maclise
Angus MacLise
Angus MacLise was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground.-Biography:...
, John Cale
John Cale
John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
, et al.), Charlemagne Palestine
Charlemagne Palestine
Charlemagne Palestine is an American minimalist composer, performer, and visual artist...
, Eliane Radigue
Eliane Radigue
Eliane Radigue is a French electronic music composer. She started her work in the 1950s and her first creations were presented in the late 1960s. Until 2000 her work was almost exclusively created on a single synthesizer, the ARP 2500 modular system and tape...
, Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
, Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze is a German electronic music composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before launching a solo career consisting of more than 60 albums released across five decades.-1970s:In...
, Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
, Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
, Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
&
Fripp & Eno
Fripp & Eno is an ambient musical side project composed of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. The duo have released four studio albums. The album Headcandy was also essentially a collaboration between the two, though credited just to Eno. The music created by this pair is entirely instrumental and has...
Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, Steven Wilson
Steven Wilson
Steven John Wilson is an English musician, best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
, Kyle Bobby Dunn
Kyle Bobby Dunn
Kyle Bobby Dunn is a composer, arranger, and live performer of modern and neo-classical based drone music. He has performed in live and exclusive outdoor settings, including Banff National Park, since 2000 and has released music on various international recording labels.His work has been described...
, Robert Rich
Robert Rich (musician)
Robert Rich is an ambient musician and composer based in California, United States. With a discography spanning over 30 years, he is widely regarded as a figure whose sound has greatly influenced today's ambient, New Age, and even IDM music.-Early life:At an early age he thought he disliked music...
, Steve Roach, Earth
Earth (band)
Earth is an American musical group based in Seattle, Washington, formed in 1989 and led by guitarist Dylan Carlson.Earth's music is nearly all instrumental, and can be divided into two distinct stages...
, Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...
, Coil
Coil (band)
Coil were an English cross-genre, experimental music group formed in 1982 by John Balance—later credited as "Jhonn Balance"—and his partner Peter Christopherson, aka "Sleazy". The duo worked together on a series of releases before Balance chose the name Coil, which he claimed to be...
, If Thousands
If Thousands
If Thousands is an American drone band from Duluth, Minnesota. Since releasing their debut album "Candice Recorder" in 2001, the band has toured the U.S. with Low. If Thousands' music has been featured on NPR. Christian McShane also performed with Charlie Parr in the band Devil's Flying Machine...
, John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
, Labradford
Labradford
Labradford is a U.S. post-rock musical group from Richmond, Virginia, founded in 1991. They have released six full albums from 1993 to 2001. Though not officially disbanded, its members have since been active with separate projects.-Biography:...
, Lawrence Chandler
Lawrence Chandler
Lawrence Chandler is an American-born musician, composer and sound artist living in London. He studied with La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros, at The Juilliard School and Goldsmiths College. He was a founder member of Bowery Electric and has worked for Philip Glass.-References:...
, Stars of the Lid
Stars of the Lid
Stars of the Lid is a duo specializing in drone-based ambient music. They list among their influences minimalist and electronic composers such as Arvo Pärt, Zbigniew Preisner, Gavin Bryars, and Henryk Górecki, as well as Talk Talk , post-rock artists Labradford, and ambient innovator Brian...
, Sonic Boom
Peter Kember
Peter Kember is a British musician and producer, more usually known as Sonic Boom, and was a founding member of alternative rock band Spacemen 3....
, Phill Niblock
Phill Niblock
Phill Niblock is a composer, filmmaker, videographer, and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.-Biography:...
, Sheila Chandra
Sheila Chandra
Sheila Chandra is an English pop singer of Indian descent.-Indian-Western pop fusion period:Sheila Chandra first came to public attention as an actress, playing Sudhamani Patel in the BBC school drama Grange Hill from 1979 to 1981.As a teenager she formed the band Monsoon with Steve Coe , and...
, Hwyl Nofio
Hwyl Nofio
Hwyl Nofio is an experimental music group whose only permanent member is Steve Parry. Steve Parry was Hwyl Nofio (from Welsh meaning ‘emotional swimmers’) is an experimental music group whose only permanent member is Steve Parry. Steve Parry was Hwyl Nofio (from Welsh meaning ‘emotional swimmers’)...
, Janek Schaefer
Janek Schaefer
Janek Schaefer is a London-based sound artist, musician, and composer born in England to Polish and Canadian parents in 1970. He is known for his innovative work with sound and installation art...
and Sunn O)))
Sunn O)))
Sunn O))) is an American doom metal band known for its synthesis of diverse genres including drone, ambient, noise, and black metal. Supported by a varying cast of collaborators, the band has two core members: Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson .-History:Sunn O))) is named after the Sunn...
.
Overview
Ethnic or spiritual music which contains droneDrone (music)
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
s and is rhythmically still or very slow, called "drone music", can be found in many parts of the world, including bagpipe traditions, among them Scottish pibroch
Piobaireachd
Pibroch, Piobaireachd or Ceòl Mór is an art music genre associated primarily with the Scottish Highlands that is characterised by extended compositions with a melodic theme and elaborate formal variations...
piping; didgeridoo
Didgeridoo
The didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread usage today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe"...
music in Australia, South Indian classical carnatic music
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
and Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music is the Hindustani or North Indian style of Indian classical music found throughout the northern Indian subcontinent. The style is sometimes called North Indian Classical Music or Shāstriya Sangeet...
(which is accompanied almost invariably by the tambura
Tambura
The tambura, tanpura, or tambora is a long-necked plucked lute . The body shape of the tambura somewhat resembles that of the sitar, but it has no frets – only the open strings are played to accompany other musicians...
, a four-string instrument which is only capable of playing a drone); the sustained tones found in the Japanese gagaku
Gagaku
Gagaku is a type of Japanese classical music that has been performed at the Imperial Court in Kyoto for several centuries. It consists of three primary repertoires:#Native Shinto religious music and folk songs and dance, called kuniburi no utamai...
classical tradition; possibly (disputed) in pre-polyphonic organum
Organum
Organum is, in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bass line may be sung on the same text, the melody may be followed in parallel motion , or a combination of...
vocal music of late medieval Europe; and the Byzantine chant's ison
Ison (music)
Ison is a drone note, or a slow-moving lower vocal part, used in Byzantine chant and some related musical traditions to accompany the melody, thus enriching the singing, at the same time not transforming it into a harmonized or polyphonic piece.- History :...
(or drone
Drone (music)
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
-singing, attested after the fifteenth century). Repetition of tones, supposed to be in imitation of bagpipes, is found in a wide variety of genres and musical forms. However, the lineage of stillness and long tones occurring in classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
compositions during adagio movements, including, for instance, the third movement of Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
's Five Small Pieces for Orchestra, as well as in Northern European folk musics in the form of "slow airs" has directly descended into modern popular and electronic music.
The modern genre also called drone music (called "dronology" by some books, labels and stores, to differentiate it from ethnic drone-based music) is often applied to artists who have allied themselves closely with underground music
Underground music
Underground music comprises a range of different musical genres that operate outside of mainstream culture. Such music can typically share common values, such as the valuing of sincerity and intimacy; an emphasis on freedom of creative expression; an appreciation of artistic creativity...
and the post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
or experimental music
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
genres. Drone music also fits into the genres of found sound, minimalist music
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
, dark ambient
Dark ambient
Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music that features foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones. Although it had its roots in the 1970s, Dark ambient emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of newer, smaller, and more affordable Effects units, synthesizer and sampling technology...
, drone doom/drone metal, and noise music
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
. Most often utilizing electronic instruments or electronic processing of acoustic instruments, they typically create dense and unmoving harmonies and a stilled or "hovering" sense of time. While the hallmarks of drone music are easy to recognize, the backgrounds and goals of the artists vary greatly.
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
and Allmusic journalist Mark Richardson defined it thus: "The vanishing-point music created by drone elders Phill Niblock and, especially, LaMonte Young is what happens when a fixation on held tones reaches a tipping point. Timbre is reduced to either a single clear instrument or a sine wave, silence disappears completely, and the base-level interaction between small clusters of "pure" tone becomes the music's content. This kind of work takes what typically helps us to distinguish "music" from "sound," discards nearly all of it, and then starts over again from scratch."
As summarized in a review, "Drone music is about as far away from music as you can get before it stops being music [...] In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was oooooommmmmmm. God was, apparently, a drone music pioneer, and there is something religious about this music... or rather, something spiritual."
La Monte Young and the Theater of Eternal Music
La Monte YoungLa Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
, fascinated with "the sound of the wind blowing", the "60 cycle per second drone" of "step-down transformers on telephone poles", the tanpura drone and the alap
Alap
The alap is the opening section of a typical North Indian classical performance. It is a form of melodic improvisation that introduces and develops a raga...
of Indian classical music
Indian classical music
The origins of Indian classical music can be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures in the Hindu tradition. Indian classical music has also been significantly influenced by, or syncretised with, Indian folk music and Persian music. The Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music...
, "certain static aspects of serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
, as in the Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
slow movement of the Symphony Opus 21", and Japanese gagaku
Gagaku
Gagaku is a type of Japanese classical music that has been performed at the Imperial Court in Kyoto for several centuries. It consists of three primary repertoires:#Native Shinto religious music and folk songs and dance, called kuniburi no utamai...
"which has sustained tones in it in the instruments such as the Sho", started writing music incorporating sustained tones in 1957 with the middle section of Four Brass, then in 1958 what he describes as "the first work in the history of music that is completely composed of long sustained tones and silences" with Trio for Strings, before exploring this drone music within the Theater of Eternal Music that he founded in 1962.
The Theater of Eternal Music is a multi-media performance group who, in its 1960s–1970s heyday included at various times La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
, Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela is a light-artist, designer, painter and musician based in New York City.-Life and work:Born to Russian-Jewish parents and raised in the Bronx, Marian Zazeela was educated at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and at Bennington College where she...
, Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
, Angus MacLise
Angus MacLise
Angus MacLise was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground.-Biography:...
, Terry Jennings, John Cale
John Cale
John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
, Billy Name
Billy Name
Billy Name, , is an American photographer, filmmaker and lighting designer. He was the archivist of the Warhol Factory, from 1964 to 1970. His brief romance and subsequent friendship with Andy Warhol led to substantial collaboration on Warhol's work, including his films, paintings and sculpture...
, Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.-Life and career:...
, Alex Dea and others, each from various backgrounds (classical composition and performance, painting, mathematics, poetry, jazz, etc.). Operating from the world of lofts and galleries in New York in the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies in particular, and tied to the aesthetics of Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
and the post-John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
-continuum, the group gave performances on the East Coast of the United States as well as in Western Europe comprised long periods of sensory innundation with combinations of harmonic relationships, which moved slowly from one to the next by means of "laws" laid out by Young regarding "allowable" sequencies and simultaneities, perhaps in imitation of Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music is the Hindustani or North Indian style of Indian classical music found throughout the northern Indian subcontinent. The style is sometimes called North Indian Classical Music or Shāstriya Sangeet...
which he, Zazeela and the others either studied or at least admired. The group released nothing during their lifetime (although Young and Zazeela issued a collaborative LP in 1969, and Young contributed in 1970 one side of a flexi-disc accompanying Aspen magazine
Aspen Magazine
-Overview:It was founded in 1974. In 1987, Janet O'Grady and Randy Beier founded the publishing firm Ridge Publications and rebranded it as a luxury lifestyle magazine. Its main themes are culture, fashion, cuisine, health, local personalities, travel, luxury, sports, and nature.It has a...
). The concerts themselves were influential on their own upon the art world including Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
(whose Stimmung
Stimmung
Stimmung, for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale Köln. Its average length is seventy-four minutes, and it bears the work number 24 in the composer's catalog...
bears their influence most strikingly) and the drone-based minimalist works of dozens of other composers many of whom made parallel innovations including Young classmate Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
, or Eliane Radigue
Eliane Radigue
Eliane Radigue is a French electronic music composer. She started her work in the 1950s and her first creations were presented in the late 1960s. Until 2000 her work was almost exclusively created on a single synthesizer, the ARP 2500 modular system and tape...
, Charlemagne Palestine
Charlemagne Palestine
Charlemagne Palestine is an American minimalist composer, performer, and visual artist...
, Yoshi Wada
Yoshi Wada
Yoshimasa "Yoshi" Wada , is a Japanese sound installation artist and musician living in the United States. He lived in New York for many years but now lives in San Francisco, California....
, Phill Niblock
Phill Niblock
Phill Niblock is a composer, filmmaker, videographer, and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.-Biography:...
and many others. Then group member John Cale
John Cale
John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
went on to extend and popularize this work into 1960s rock music with the Velvet Underground (along with songwriter Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
).
In 2000, La Monte Young wrote: "[About] the style of music that I originated, I believe that the sustained tone branch of minimalism, also known as “drone music,” is a fertile area for exploration."
John Cale and the Velvet Underground
The combination of Cale's grinding viola drone with Reed's two-chord guitar figure of the Velvet Underground's song "HeroinHeroin (song)
"Heroin" is a song by The Velvet Underground, released on their 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Written by Lou Reed in 1964, the song is one of the band's most celebrated compositions, overtly depicting heroin use and abuse...
" on their first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) laid the foundation for drone music as a rock music genre in close proximity to the art-world project of the Theatre of Eternal Music. Cale's departure from the group in 1968 blurred matters considerably, as Reed continued to play primitive figures (sometimes in reference to R&B), while Cale went quickly on to produce the Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
' debut (1969), including his viola drone on the track "We Will Fall" and Nico
Nico
Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
's The Marble Index (1969) which also included Cale's viola drone on "Frozen Warnings". Later, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
issued in 1975 a double LP of multi-tracked electric-guitar feedback titled Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music, subtitled *The Amine β Ring, is the fifth solo album by Lou Reed. It was originally released as a double album by RCA Records in 1975...
which listed (misspelling included) "Drone cognizance and harmonic possibilities vis a vis Lamont Young's Dream Music" among its "Specifications".
George Harrison and the Beatles
Several songs by The BeatlesThe Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, the most popular and influential group of the 1960s, include drones. Drawing on George Harrison's studies and friendship with Hindustani classical sitarist, Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...
, from 1966's Love You To
Love You To
"Love You To" is a song by The Beatles from the album Revolver. It is sung and written by George Harrison and features North Indian classical instrumentation; tabla, a pair of hand-drums, sitar and a tambura providing a drone...
through 1967's The Inner Light
The Inner Light (song)
"The Inner Light" is a song written by George Harrison that was first released by The Beatles as a B-side to "Lady Madonna". It was the first Harrison composition to be featured on a Beatles single. The lyrics are a rendering of the 47th chapter of the Taoist Tao Te Ching...
, many of Harrison's compositions include the tambura
Tambura
The tambura, tanpura, or tambora is a long-necked plucked lute . The body shape of the tambura somewhat resembles that of the sitar, but it has no frets – only the open strings are played to accompany other musicians...
, an instrument dedicated in Indian music to harmonic stasis. John Lennon's Tomorrow Never Knows
Tomorrow Never Knows
"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track of The Beatles' 1966 studio album Revolver but the first to be recorded. Credited as a Lennon–McCartney song, it was written primarily by John Lennon...
, a quasi-mystical song based around text from the Tibetan Book of the Dead also includes the tambura and is sung around a pedal-point drone, as in medieval Western liturgical music.
Krautrock
In the late sixties and early seventies German rock musicians including CanCan (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
, Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
and Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
drew from the heritage of experimental sixties rock like the Beatles at their most collagic and jamming as well as from composers like Stockhausen and La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
. These groups became influential on art-rock contemporaries in their own day and punk-rock and post-punk players subsequently. Tony Conrad, of the Theater of Eternal Music, notably made a collaborative LP with Faust which included nothing but two sides of complex violin drones accompanied only by a single note on bass guitar and a bloody-minded percussion accompaniment. Single-note bass-lines were also featured on Can's track "Mother Sky" (album Soundtracks
Soundtracks (Can album)
Soundtracks is a soundtrack album by the Krautrock group Can. It was first released in 1970 and consists of tracks written for various films. The album marks the departure of the band's original vocalist Malcolm Mooney, who sings on two tracks, to be replaced by new member Damo Suzuki...
, 1970) and the entirety of Die Krupp's first album (1979).
New age, cosmic and ambient music
Parallel to Krautrock's rockist impulses, across North America and Europe, some musicians sought to reconcile Asian classicalism, austere minimalism and folk music's consonant aspects in the service of spiritualism. Among them was Theater of Eternal Music alumnus Terry RileyTerry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
with his 1964 In C
In C
In C is a semi-aleatoric musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for any number of people, although he suggests "a group of about 35 is desired if possible but smaller or larger groups will work"...
and who had become a disciple, along with Young and Zazeela, of the Hindustani classical singer Pandit Pran Nath
Pandit Pran Nath
Pandit Pran Nath was a Hindustani classical singer and teacher of the Kirana gharana , with a successful American career.-Early life:...
. In parallel, then-Krautrock band Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
and their recently departed member Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze
Klaus Schulze is a German electronic music composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before launching a solo career consisting of more than 60 albums released across five decades.-1970s:In...
both moved toward a more contemplative and consonant harmonic music, each releasing their own drone music album on the label Ohr in August 1972 (Zeit
Zeit
Zeit is the third album by the German electronic music group Tangerine Dream. A double LP, it was the first release featuring Peter Baumann, who joined Chris Franke and Edgar Froese.-Overview:...
and Irrlicht
Irrlicht (album)
-Notes:*On vinyl, "Ebene" and "Gewitter" were combined into one 29:00 long track.*"Satz" is the German word for the musical term "movement", therefore "1. Satz" is German for "1st Movement"...
, respectively). Meanwhile, as increasingly elaborate studio technology was born during the seventies, Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, an alumn of the glam/art-rock band Roxy Music
Roxy Music
Roxy Music was a British art rock band formed in 1971 by Bryan Ferry, who became the group's lead vocalist and chief songwriter, and bassist Graham Simpson. The other members are Phil Manzanera , Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson . Former members include Brian Eno , and Eddie Jobson...
postulated ambient music
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
(drawing, in part from John Cage and his antecedent Erik Satie
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
's 1910s concept of furniture music
Furniture music
Furniture music, or in French musique d’ameublement , is background music originally played by live performers...
, in part from minimalists such as La Monte Young) as "able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting". While his late seventies ambient tape-music recordings are not drone music, his acknowledgment of Young ("the daddy of us all") and his influence on later drone music made him an undeniable link in the chain.
Shoegaze and indie-drone
In the UK, a crop of 1980s rock bands appeared who owed greater or lesser debts to the Velvet Underground, Krautrock, and subsequent droning trends. Cocteau TwinsCocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...
, Coil
Coil (band)
Coil were an English cross-genre, experimental music group formed in 1982 by John Balance—later credited as "Jhonn Balance"—and his partner Peter Christopherson, aka "Sleazy". The duo worked together on a series of releases before Balance chose the name Coil, which he claimed to be...
, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive
Slowdive
Slowdive were an English shoegaze band that formed in 1989. The band formed in Reading, Berkshire and primarily consisted of Nick Chaplin , Rachel Goswell , Neil Halstead , and Christian Savill...
, The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Jesus and Mary Chain are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in East Kilbride, Glasgow in 1983. The band revolves around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim and William Reid...
, Ride
Ride (band)
Ride were a British alternative rock band that formed in 1988 in Oxford, England, consisting of Andy Bell, Mark Gardener, Laurence "Loz" Colbert, and Steve Queralt. The band were initially part of the "shoegazing" scene. Following the break-up of the band in 1996, members moved on to various other...
, Loop
Loop (band)
Loop was a South London band founded in 1986 by Robert Hampson and his wife, Bex, and active until 1991.-Career:The band was formed in 1986 by Robert Hampson , with wife Bex on drums. Bex was soon replaced by John Wills and Glen Ray, with James Endeacott on guitar...
(who covered Can's "Mother Sky") Brian Jonestown Massacre (Methodrone album) and Spacemen 3
Spacemen 3
Spacemen 3 were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce. Their music was "colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the '60s; instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia"...
(who used a text by Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
for the liner notes to their record Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music
Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music
2004 re-issue -References:...
, a live 45-minute drone piece), for instance reasserted the influence of the Velvet Underground and its antecedents in their use of overwhelming volume and hovering sounds, even as they asserted rockish and propulsive rhythms. Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
uses a large number of guitars with alternate tunings to emphasise the drone in almost all of their songs. They also quite often prolong notes in their song structures to add more droning in their song. Pelt and Charalambides
Charalambides
Charalambides is an avant garde musical group originally from Houston, Texas, USA and lately of Austin, Texas. Formed in 1991 by Tom Carter, Christina Carter and Kyle Silfer, they have followed in the footsteps of other Texas psychedelic music artists such as the 13th Floor Elevators, Red Crayola,...
expanded them further still while referring to eighties and nineties noise music
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
, Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music, subtitled *The Amine β Ring, is the fifth solo album by Lou Reed. It was originally released as a double album by RCA Records in 1975...
-derived performers like Merzbow
Merzbow
is the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...
, C.C.C.C., and KK Null
KK Null
KK Null is a Japanese experimental multi-instrumentalist. He began as a guitarist, but soon added composer, singer, electronic musician and drummer to his list of talents, and also studied with the Butoh workshop....
.
Electronics and metal
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, drone music was intermixed with rock, ambient, dark ambient, electronic and new-age music. Many drone music originators, including Phill NiblockPhill Niblock
Phill Niblock is a composer, filmmaker, videographer, and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.-Biography:...
, Eliane Radigue
Eliane Radigue
Eliane Radigue is a French electronic music composer. She started her work in the 1950s and her first creations were presented in the late 1960s. Until 2000 her work was almost exclusively created on a single synthesizer, the ARP 2500 modular system and tape...
and La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
are still active and continute to work exclusively in long, sustained tones. Improvisors like Hototogisu
Hototogisu
Hototogisu may refer to:*Lesser Cuckoo , a bird native to Japan*Hototogisu , a literary magazine*Hototogisu , a 1922 Japanese film*Hototogisu , a video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System...
and Sunroof! play nothing but sustained fields which are close to drones. Sunn O)))
Sunn O)))
Sunn O))) is an American doom metal band known for its synthesis of diverse genres including drone, ambient, noise, and black metal. Supported by a varying cast of collaborators, the band has two core members: Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson .-History:Sunn O))) is named after the Sunn...
, a drone metal band, almost exclusively plays sustained tone pieces, and their peers Merzbow
Merzbow
is the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...
and Boris
Boris (band)
is a Japanese experimental rock band, known for often combining and switching between different music genres including drone metal, sludge metal, noise rock, psychedelic rock, ambient and pop...
released a collaborative 62-minute drone piece called Sun Baked Snow Cave
Sun Baked Snow Cave
Sun Baked Snow Cave is a collaborative album between Merzbow and Japanese experimental doom band Boris, released on the Boston-based Hydra Head label in 2005....
in 2005.
Examples
Some notable examples include, chronologically:- Yves KleinYves KleinYves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
: as a precedent, his 1949 Monotone Symphony (formally The Monotone-Silence Symphony, conceived 1947–1948) is an orchestral 40-minute piece whose first movement is an unvarying 20-minute drone (the second and last movement being a 20-minute silence). - La Monte YoungLa Monte YoungLa Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
's 1958 Trio for Strings, that he describes as "the first work in the history of music that is completely composed of long sustained tones and silences." - Giacinto ScelsiGiacinto ScelsiGiacinto Scelsi , Count of Ayala Valva was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French....
's 1959 piece Quattro pezzi su una nota sola for one pitch and numerous subsequent pieces by himself and his followers and contemporaries in the realm of spectral compositionSpectral musicSpectral music is a musical composition practice where compositional decisions are often informed by the analysis of sound spectra. Computer-based sound spectrum analysis using tools like DFT, FFT, and spectrograms...
. - La Monte YoungLa Monte YoungLa Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
's 1960s drone-based pieces, solo and with John CaleJohn CaleJohn Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
, Tony ConradTony ConradTony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
, Marian ZazeelaMarian ZazeelaMarian Zazeela is a light-artist, designer, painter and musician based in New York City.-Life and work:Born to Russian-Jewish parents and raised in the Bronx, Marian Zazeela was educated at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and at Bennington College where she...
, Terry RileyTerry RileyTerrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, Angus MacLiseAngus MacLiseAngus MacLise was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground.-Biography:...
, Terry Jennings and/or Billy NameBilly NameBilly Name, , is an American photographer, filmmaker and lighting designer. He was the archivist of the Warhol Factory, from 1964 to 1970. His brief romance and subsequent friendship with Andy Warhol led to substantial collaboration on Warhol's work, including his films, paintings and sculpture...
in the Theater of Eternal Music (aka The Dream Syndicate), including: Day of NiagaraDay of NiagaraInside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. I: Day of Niagara or simply Day of Niagara is a 1965 album by the minimalist music group the Theatre of Eternal Music, aka The Dream Syndicate...
: Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. I (1965/2000). - The "free form freakout" leading into The Red Crayola's "Pink Stainless Tale" from their Parable of Arable LandParable of Arable LandThe Parable of Arable Land is the first album by the Red Krayola, then known as the Red Crayola. The album is self-described as a “Free Form Freak-Out,” and remains one of the most infamous in their catalogue. A “Free Form Freak-Out” segues each of the actual songs, often resurfacing again...
album (1967). - Late 1960s–1980s work by minimal composers and gallery artists Yoshimasa Wada (The Rise and Fall of the Elephantine Serpentine), John CaleJohn CaleJohn Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
(Sun Blindness MusicSun Blindness MusicNew York in the 1960s: Sun Blindness Music, better known as Sun Blindness Music, is an album by John Cale released in 2001. It is the first of a loose anthology of experimental albums recorded during Cale's tenure with the Theatre of Eternal Music during the mid 1960s. The pieces included on the...
, 1965–1968/2001; Dream InterpretationDream Interpretation (album)John Cale: Inside the Dream Syndicate Volume 2, Dream Interpretation, aka simply Dream Interpretation, is an album by John Cale during his tenure with the Theatre of Eternal Music. It is the second in a loose anthology of minimalist pieces, once thought lost, compiled from the tape collection of...
: Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. II, 1965–1968/2001; Stainless GamelanStainless GamelanJohn Cale: Inside the Dream Syndicate Volume 3, Stainless Gamelan or simply Stainless Gamelan is an album by John Cale, better known for his work as the violist and founding member of The Velvet Underground...
: Inside the Dream Syndicate, Vol. III, 1965-1968/2002), Tony ConradTony ConradTony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
solo (Joan of ArcJoan of Arc (album)Joan of Arc is a 2006 album by mimimalist composer Tony Conrad. The piece, which lasts unbroken for over an hour, was originally written by Conrad as a soundtrack to accompany Piero Heliczer's like-named short film.-Overview:...
, 1968/2006) and with FaustFaust (band)Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
(Outside the Dream SyndicateOutside the Dream SyndicateOutside the Dream Syndicate is a 1973 collaboration album by United States avant-garde filmmaker Tony Conrad and German krautrock group Faust. The album marks Conrad's first and only musical release for many years, and remains his best known musical work. It is considered a classic of minimalist...
, 1973; Outside the Dream Syndicate Alive, 1995/2005), Terry FoxTerry FoxTerrance Stanley "Terry" Fox , was a Canadian humanitarian, athlete, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated, he embarked on a cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research...
(Berlino), Harry BertoiaHarry BertoiaHarry Bertoia , was an Italian-born artist, sculptor, and modern furniture designer....
, Jon GibsonJon Gibson (minimalist musician)Jon Gibson is a flautist, saxophonist, and composer.-Education:Gibson studied at Sacramento State University and with Henry Onderdonk and Wayne Peterson at San Francisco State University, where he earned a BA in 1964...
(Two Solo Pieces), Charlemagne PalestineCharlemagne PalestineCharlemagne Palestine is an American minimalist composer, performer, and visual artist...
(In Mid Air, 1967–1970/2003; Four Manifestations on Six Elements, 1974/1996; Schlingen-Blängen, 1988/1999), David HykesDavid HykesDavid Hykes is a composer, singer, musician, author, and meditation teacher. He was one of the earliest modern western pioneers of so-called overtone singing, and has developed since 1975 a comprehensive approach to contemplative music which he calls Harmonic Chant...
(Hearing Solar Winds), Pauline OliverosPauline OliverosPauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
(Horse Sings From Cloud), Alvin LucierAlvin LucierAlvin Lucier is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and...
(Music on a Long, Thin Wire), Harley Gaber (The Wind Rises in the North), Stuart DempsterStuart DempsterStuart Dempster is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improvisor, and composer.-Biography:After Dempster completed his studies at San Francisco State College, he was appointed assistant professor at the California State College at Hayward, and instructor at the San Francisco Conservatory...
(In the Great Abbey of Clement VI), and Remko SchaRemko SchaRemko J. H. Scha is a professor of computational linguistics at the faculty of humanities and Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam. He is also an internationally renowned composer and performer of algorithmic art....
(Machine Guitars), to name only a few. All used long, sustained and timbrally dense harmonic material for the entirety of various of their pieces. - Philip GlassPhilip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
: within the 61-minute (1970, recorded 1971, issued 1973) parts 1-2 and 4 (on original LP; single-track CD has them around 0-16, 16-36, and 50-61 mins) are based around drones from wind instruments and sustained voices, rythmed with a slowly-evolving whirlwind of electric organ (which goes solo on the non-drone part 3). - KraftwerkKraftwerkKraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
's experimental/drone self-titled first album KraftwerkKraftwerk (album)Kraftwerk is the first album by German electronic band Kraftwerk. It was released in Germany in 1970, and produced by Konrad "Conny" Plank.-Background:...
(1970): the 4-minute intro to "Stratovarius", the organ drone on most of "Megaherz", the first half of "Vom Himmel Hoch". - Harold BuddHarold BuddHarold Budd is an American ambient/avant-garde composer and poet. Born in Los Angeles, he was raised in the Mojave Desert, and was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires....
's 1970 experimental drone pieces "The Oak of the Golden Dreams" and "Coeur D'Orr" on The Oak of the Golden Dreams. - Klaus SchulzeKlaus SchulzeKlaus Schulze is a German electronic music composer and musician. He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried. He was briefly a member of the electronic bands Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before launching a solo career consisting of more than 60 albums released across five decades.-1970s:In...
's early "organ drone" albums IrrlichtIrrlicht (album)-Notes:*On vinyl, "Ebene" and "Gewitter" were combined into one 29:00 long track.*"Satz" is the German word for the musical term "movement", therefore "1. Satz" is German for "1st Movement"...
(1972), and to a lesser extent the mix of drone and space on CyborgCyborg (album)-External links:* at the official site of Klaus Schulze...
(1973) (the organ drone track "Synphära", the cello drone track "Chromengel"). - Tangerine DreamTangerine DreamTangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
's ambient drone album ZeitZeitZeit is the third album by the German electronic music group Tangerine Dream. A double LP, it was the first release featuring Peter Baumann, who joined Chris Franke and Edgar Froese.-Overview:...
(1972), and to a lesser extent the mix of drone ambient and space music on PhaedraPhaedra (album)-Personnel:* Edgar Froese – producer, Mellotron, guitar, bass, VCS 3 synthesizer, organ* Christopher Franke – Moog synthesizer, VCS 3 synthesizer* Peter Baumann – Organ, electric piano, VCS 3 synthesizer, flute-Chart performance:-References:*...
(1974). - FrippRobert FrippRobert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
and EnoBrian EnoBrian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
: the 21-minute drone ambient of "The Heavenly Music Corporation" on No Pussyfooting (1973), the 28-minute drone ambient of "An Index of Metals" on Evening StarEvening Star (album)Evening Star is an album by the British ambient musicians Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. The cover is a painting by the artist Peter Schmidt....
(1975). Fripp revisited guitar drone in 1998 with the 3-minute intro of "Sus-tayn-Z" (a play on "sustains") from the Live Groove album of King CrimsonKing CrimsonKing Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
's ProjeKct Two. - On Miles DavisMiles DavisMiles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
' AghartaAgharta (album)Agharta is an album recorded by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis in 1975. Both Agharta and Pangaea were recorded on the same day in Osaka, Japan...
(1975): the last 6 minutes of the last track, especially the last 2 minutes. - Jon HassellJon HassellJon Hassell is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.-Life and career:...
's Vernal Equinox (1977) - Robert RichRobert Rich (musician)Robert Rich is an ambient musician and composer based in California, United States. With a discography spanning over 30 years, he is widely regarded as a figure whose sound has greatly influenced today's ambient, New Age, and even IDM music.-Early life:At an early age he thought he disliked music...
's early albums Sunyata (1982), TrancesTrancesTrances is the second album by the American ambient musician Robert Rich. Like his first album Sunyata, this album consists of slow, textural drone music....
(1983), DronesDrones (album)Drones is an album by the American ambient musician Robert Rich. Like most of Rich’s early work, this album consists of slow, textural drone music. The first track features ocean waves recorded at Encinada, Mexico. In 1994 this album was rereleased with Rich’s previous album Trances in a two-disc...
(1983). - Steve Roach: the drone ambient album Structures from SilenceStructures from SilenceStructures from Silence is the third album by the American ambient musician Steve Roach. This is his first purely textural album, with a smooth, dark, gentle atmosphere unlike any of his other albums....
(1984). - CoilCoil (band)Coil were an English cross-genre, experimental music group formed in 1982 by John Balance—later credited as "Jhonn Balance"—and his partner Peter Christopherson, aka "Sleazy". The duo worked together on a series of releases before Balance chose the name Coil, which he claimed to be...
's drone music albums How to Destroy Angels EP (1984) and How to Destroy Angels (Remixes and Re-Recordings)How to Destroy Angels (Remixes And Re-Recordings)How to Destroy Angels is a remix album by Coil. All of the songs are remixes from the 12" single of the same name. It contains different versions and mixes of the song "How To Destroy Angels", and features cover artwork by filmmaker Derek Jarman. The remixes were produced by John Balance, Peter...
LP (1992), Time MachinesTime MachinesTime Machines is Coil's landmark drone music album, released under the alias Time Machines. It consists of four tracks which are composed of a single tone, called a drone. Each tone represents a certain hallucinogenic chemical...
(1998), and to a lesser extent ANSANS (box)ANS is an box set created and produced by Coil. The album uses a strange and esoteric photoelectric synthesizer known as the ANS synthesizer. It was built around half a century ago and still to this day sits where it was originally conceived; in the Moscow State University...
(2003). Plus many tracks on non-drone albums, such as "Tenderness of Wolves" on ScatologyScatology (album)Scatology is the first LP and a second album produced by Coil.Scatology was released in three different formats with two different covers...
(1984), "Wrim Wram Wrom" on Stolen and Contaminated Songs (1992), "Cold Dream of an Earth Star" and "Die Wolfe Kommen Zuruck" on Black Light District: A Thousand Lights in a Darkened RoomA Thousand Lights In A Darkened RoomA Thousand Lights In A Darkened Room is the only release by the group Black Light District. Although this is not an official Coil release, "Black Light District" was merely an alias for the group...
(1996), "North" on Moon's Milk (1998 singles). (Plus many semi-drone tracks such as "Her Friends the Wolves...", "Moon's Milk or Under an Unquiet Skull Part 1", "Bee Stings", "Refusal of Leave to Land", "Magnetic North", etc.) - Vidna ObmanaVidna ObmanaVidna Obmana is a pseudonym used by Belgian composer and ambient musician Dirk Serries. The name Vidna Obmana, a phrase in Serbian, literally translates to "optical illusion" and was chosen by Serries because he felt it accurately described the music...
: half of Noise/Drone Anthology (1984-1989/2004), the drone-ambient album Soundtrack for the Aquarium (1992/2001), and the drone ambient "night disc" (percussionless disc two) of Well of Souls (1995, with Steve Roach). - John CageJohn CageJohn Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
: the 23-minute strings piece "Twenty-Three" (late 1980s). - On Aphex TwinAphex TwinRichard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
's Selected Ambient Works Volume IISelected Ambient Works Volume II-Formatting notes:The cassette version of the album featured six songs on each side, barring side three, which contained seven . The vinyl version featured four songs on each side, excluding side four, which contained five ....
(1994): especially "[spots]" and "[tassels]", and to a lesser degree tracks such as "[tree]", "[parallel stripes]", "[grey stripe]", and "[white blur 2]". - LabradfordLabradfordLabradford is a U.S. post-rock musical group from Richmond, Virginia, founded in 1991. They have released six full albums from 1993 to 2001. Though not officially disbanded, its members have since been active with separate projects.-Biography:...
: the drone ambient album Prazision LP (1993), and to a lesser extent a few drone-rock tracks on A Stable ReferenceA Stable ReferenceA Stable Reference is the second album by Virginian post-rock band Labradford, released on the May 26, 1995.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Ned Raggett awarded the album 4 stars stating "The biggest change on Reference has remained a near-constant ever since, namely, the removal of lyrics and...
(1995) and LabradfordLabradford (album)Labradford is third album by Virginian post-rock band Labradford, released in 1996.-Track listing:#Phantom Channel Crossing 4:43#Mid-Range 6:29#Pico 5:46#The Cipher 3:11#Lake Speed 6:46#Scenic Recovery 4:51#Battered 7:57-Links:...
(1996). - Kyle Bobby DunnKyle Bobby DunnKyle Bobby Dunn is a composer, arranger, and live performer of modern and neo-classical based drone music. He has performed in live and exclusive outdoor settings, including Banff National Park, since 2000 and has released music on various international recording labels.His work has been described...
and his patient drones for electric guitar and chamber instruments are full of movement and detail, yet throughout all the tiny changes, an uncanny stillness prevails. Nearly two hours of minimal, lulling and romantic drone on the double album, A Young Person's Guide to Kyle Bobby DunnA Young Person's Guide to Kyle Bobby DunnA Young Person's Guide is a double album release from Canadian composer Kyle Bobby Dunn. It was recorded over a period of six years in Greensboro, North Carolina, Calgary, Alberta, Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan, and parts of New York and New Jersey....
. "Going down in history as a master of 21st century minimalist drone." Sedimental has been following Dunn’s sensitive and world-wise drone works closely for many years. “…there’s an austere classical air to Dunn’s compositions, recalling the geometry of cathedral domes and the interlaced ribs of vaulted ceilings.” -The Wire Magazine - Stars of the LidStars of the LidStars of the Lid is a duo specializing in drone-based ambient music. They list among their influences minimalist and electronic composers such as Arvo Pärt, Zbigniew Preisner, Gavin Bryars, and Henryk Górecki, as well as Talk Talk , post-rock artists Labradford, and ambient innovator Brian...
(described as "Austin drone stars" in 1995): the overwhelming majority of their work, from Music for Nitrous OxideMusic for Nitrous OxideMusic for Nitrous Oxide is the first studio album released by Stars of the Lid on Sedimental Records in 1995. The album features minimal, droning compositions of varying length...
(1995) and Gravitational Pull vs. the Desire for an Aquatic LifeGravitational Pull vs. the Desire for an Aquatic LifeGravitational Pull vs the Desire for an Aquatic Life is the second studio album by ambient drone music group Stars of the Lid. It was recorded on four track and released as an LP on Sedimental in 1996...
(1996) to the more classical-tinged The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid (2001) and Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the DeclineStars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the DeclineAnd Their Refinement of the Decline is the seventh studio LP by Stars of the Lid, which was released on the Kranky Label in April 2007. The album features minimal, droning compositions of varied length created from treated guitar, horn, piano, and other classical instruments.The track "Dopamine...
(2007). - Mystical SunMystical SunMystical Sun is an Ambient, Downtempo music producer who uses custom software instruments, sarod, sitar, ukulele, guitar and a wide array of audio sources....
: the drone ambient album Primordial Atmospheres (1994), especially the track Journey to Samadhi which fuses 33 minute drones with binarual beats. - Sheila ChandraSheila ChandraSheila Chandra is an English pop singer of Indian descent.-Indian-Western pop fusion period:Sheila Chandra first came to public attention as an actress, playing Sudhamani Patel in the BBC school drama Grange Hill from 1979 to 1981.As a teenager she formed the band Monsoon with Steve Coe , and...
's album ABoneCroneDrone (1996) consists of minimalist vocal phrases over complex electronic drones combined with acoustic drones. She found melodies inherent within the harmonics of the drones, so that the music was incomplete without the listeners finding their own melodies arising from the drones, as she invited the listeners to be creators. She continued this approach onto her next album, This Sentence Is True (The Previous Sentence Is False). This work developed from her previous explorations based in Indian musicIndian classical musicThe origins of Indian classical music can be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures in the Hindu tradition. Indian classical music has also been significantly influenced by, or syncretised with, Indian folk music and Persian music. The Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music...
using drones such as the tamburaTamburaThe tambura, tanpura, or tambora is a long-necked plucked lute . The body shape of the tambura somewhat resembles that of the sitar, but it has no frets – only the open strings are played to accompany other musicians...
. - Bowery ElectricBowery ElectricBowery Electric was an American indie band formed in New York's East Village in 1992 by Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener.-Music:Bowery Electric's music defies easy classification...
's "Postscript" on the album Beat (1996). - GescomGescomGescom is an electronic music project based in England with close ties to the band Autechre. The name is believed to have been derived from Gestalt Communication...
(a side-project of AutechreAutechreAutechre are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both natives of Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most prominent acts signed to Warp Records, a label known for its pioneering electronic music and through which all Autechre albums...
): the experimental album Minidisc (1998) is half drone ambient (tracks "Cranusberg [1-3]", "Fully [1-2]", "Shoegazer", "Polarized Beam Splitter [1-5]", "Dan Dan Dan [1-4]", "A Newer Beginning [1-2]", "Go On", and to a lesser degree "Interchangeable World [1-3]", "Yo! DMX Crew", "New Contact Lense", "1D Shapethrower", "Inter", "Of Our Time", or the drone techno of "Pricks [1-4]"). - RadioheadRadioheadRadiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
's "Treefingers" (on the album Kid AKid AKid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in October 2000 by the Parlophone label. A commercial success worldwide, Kid A went platinum in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. Despite the lack of an official single or music video as publicity, Kid A...
, 2000) is a cross of drone ambient and space music. - Biosphere : half of his ambient/drone album ShenzhouShenzhou (album)Shenzhou is an album by ambient musician Biosphere which was released on June 3, 2002. The structure and sound of this album is drastically minimalistic in comparison with Geir Jenssen's previous work up to this point, a concept that would be further elaborated upon with the next album...
(2002), and his drone album Autour de la LuneAutour de la LuneAutour de la Lune is an album by ambient musician Biosphere which was released on May 17, 2004. The album presents a striking difference from others in the Biosphere catalog due to its percussionless, minimalistic soundscapes consisting mostly of white noise and the sounds of the Mir space...
(2004). - Boards of CanadaBoards of CanadaBoards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
: the drone ambient of "Corsair" on GeogaddiGeogaddiGeogaddi is the second album by Boards of Canada. It was released in February 2002 on three different days for each region to a large degree of anticipation. It presents a darker sound than its predecessor Music Has the Right to Children. The title of the album has no conclusive meaning; the...
(2002). - WilcoWilcoWilco is an American alternative rock band based in Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo following singer Jay Farrar's departure. Wilco's lineup has changed frequently, with only singer Jeff Tweedy and bassist John...
's album A Ghost Is BornA Ghost Is BornA Ghost Is Born is the fifth studio album by Chicago-based alternative rock band Wilco. Released on June 22, 2004, it features singer Jeff Tweedy on lead guitar more than any previous Wilco album...
(2004) contains "Less Than You Think", a 15-minute track containing ~12 minutes of droning ambience after a brief piano-based melody. - Contemporary drone composers such as Phill NiblockPhill NiblockPhill Niblock is a composer, filmmaker, videographer, and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.-Biography:...
, Leif ElggrenLeif ElggrenLeif Elggren , is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Stockholm.Active since the late 1970s, Leif Elggren has become one of the most constantly surprising conceptual artists to work in the combined worlds of audio and visual...
, Eliane RadigueEliane RadigueEliane Radigue is a French electronic music composer. She started her work in the 1950s and her first creations were presented in the late 1960s. Until 2000 her work was almost exclusively created on a single synthesizer, the ARP 2500 modular system and tape... - Dark ambientDark ambientDark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music that features foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones. Although it had its roots in the 1970s, Dark ambient emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of newer, smaller, and more affordable Effects units, synthesizer and sampling technology...
, noise musicNoise musicNoise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
, post-industrial musicIndustrial musicIndustrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
and improvised music bands and projects involved with drone music include AutopsiaAutopsiaAutopsia is an art project dealing with music and visual production. Autopsia gathers authors of different professions in realization of multimedia projects. Its art practice began in London in the late 1970s, continued during the 80s in the art centers of former Yugoslavia. Since 1990, Autopsia...
, Die KruppsDie KruppsDie Krupps is a German industrial rock/EBM band, formed in 1980 by Jürgen Engler and Bernward Malaka in Düsseldorf.-History:Their initial sound throughout the 1980s combined synthesizers with metallic percussion...
, KK NullKK NullKK Null is a Japanese experimental multi-instrumentalist. He began as a guitarist, but soon added composer, singer, electronic musician and drummer to his list of talents, and also studied with the Butoh workshop....
, Zoviet FranceZoviet FranceZoviet France is a prolific music group from Newcastle upon Tyne in north east England. While often dissonant and made of industrial textures, their music also falls into the ambient music category...
, Matthew BowerMatthew BowerMatthew Bower is a British musician, active since the early 1980s, with a vast collection of collaborative and solo work behind him.-Skullflower:...
's Hototogisu, C.C.C.C., MerzbowMerzbowis the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...
, WapstanWapstanWapstan is the name of the main musical project of Canadian noise musician Martin Sasseville based in Montreal, Quebec. Originally formed in Saguenay as a project to create experimental sounds influenced by the experience of coldness, Wapstan based most of his sounds as a tribute of the north...
. - Other contemporary bands representative of this genre include Maeror TriMaeror TriMaeror Tri was an ambient noise and drone music band from Germany founded in the 1980s which consisted of Stefan "Baraka H" Knappe, Martin "GLIT[s]CH" Git and Helge Siehl....
, Children of the Drone, Windy & CarlWindy & Carl-Overview:Cited as "A leading light of the Michigan space-rock scene" by Allmusic, the minimalist group formed in 1993 around the core husband-and-wife duo of guitarist Carl Hultgren and bassist/singer Windy Weber...
, TroumTroumTroum is a German project of drone music, ambient music, noise music, and experimental music. It was founded in the late 1990s by Stefan Knappe and Martin Gitschel . It is sometimes considered to be the follow-up project to Maeror Tri...
, Mirko UhligMirko UhligMirko Uhlig is a German artist in the field of contemporary experimental music.-Music:He first appeared with surreal sound collages and musique concrète-techniques under the moniker Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf around 2004...
, House of Low CultureHouse of Low CultureHouse of Low Culture is a musical project which is fronted by Aaron Turner, and includes other members of the band Isis. The ensemble also includes Stephen O'Malley from Sunn O))) and Luke Scarola from Old Man Gloom...
, GrowingGrowing (band)Growing is a drone music/ambient music/noise music band formed in Olympia, Washington, and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. The group was founded in 2001 by Kevin Doria , Joe Denardo , and Zack Carlson...
, CisfinitumCisfinitumCisfinitum is a post-industrial noise project from Moscow, Russia. It was started in the late 1990s by composer and musician Eugene Voronovsky and has drawn significant attention as one of the most uncommon and distinctive on the national experimental scene...
, Hwyl NofioHwyl NofioHwyl Nofio is an experimental music group whose only permanent member is Steve Parry. Steve Parry was Hwyl Nofio (from Welsh meaning ‘emotional swimmers’) is an experimental music group whose only permanent member is Steve Parry. Steve Parry was Hwyl Nofio (from Welsh meaning ‘emotional swimmers’)...
, and Eleh Some important hearths for bands in the genre include SoleilmoonSoleilmoonSoleilmoon Recordings is an American record label that began in 1987 as a cassette label, operating from the back of a record shop called the Ooze in Portland, Oregon, USA. The first releases were by Smegma, Muslimgauze, Coil, and Nocturnal Emissions. Compact discs releases soon followed in...
or Drone RecordsDrone RecordsDrone Records is an independent record label based in Germany specialising in drone, ambient, and noise music.-Overview:Drone Records was founded by Stefan Knappe . The label releases exclusively 7" and 10" vinyl, and all the artists design their own release artwork.-External links:* - official...
. - "The Barometric Sea" by Deepspace is drone-based, taking in many ambient and drone influences.
- The Music of Stray GhostStray GhostStray Ghost is the artist name of the English composer and sound artist, Anthony Saggers. He has released music through the record labels, Hidden Shoal, Highpoint Lowlife, Dead Pilot and Phantom Channel.-Release history:...
is mostly drone-influenced, and showcases a blurring between classical string sounds and drones. - Most of Bethany CurveBethany CurveBethany Curve is a shoegaze and alternative rock band from Santa Cruz, California.-Biography:Founding members Richard Millang, Ray Lake, Chris Preston and David Mac Wha formed the band in 1994. Ray Lake and Chris Preston saw a local street sign reading "Bethany Curve" and decided amongst themselves...
's songs are drone-based, made only with guitars. - Erik Wøllo: the electronic drone ambient album The Polar Drones (2003).
- Steven WilsonSteven WilsonSteven John Wilson is an English musician, best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree...
's side project, Bass CommunionBass CommunionBass Communion is a side project of Steven Wilson, best known for his lead role in the rock band Porcupine Tree. Records released under the name "Bass Communion" are in an ambient or electronic vein - lengthy drone-heavy compositions...
, uses drone, noise, supernatural, and ambient textures. Wilson's solo debut InsurgentesInsurgentesInsurgentes is a Spanish word meaning insurgents and may refer to:*Avenida de los Insurgentes, the longest avenue in Mexico City*Insurgentes , album by British artist Steven Wilson*Metro Insurgentes, subway station in Mexico City...
(2008) also contains various drone and noise elements throughout. - If ThousandsIf ThousandsIf Thousands is an American drone band from Duluth, Minnesota. Since releasing their debut album "Candice Recorder" in 2001, the band has toured the U.S. with Low. If Thousands' music has been featured on NPR. Christian McShane also performed with Charlie Parr in the band Devil's Flying Machine...
' album "Lullaby" (2003) is intended to aid slumber through the use of keyboards, guitars, and field recordings to build up a captivating atmosphere that mimics a state of near-sleep. - Janek SchaeferJanek SchaeferJanek Schaefer is a London-based sound artist, musician, and composer born in England to Polish and Canadian parents in 1970. He is known for his innovative work with sound and installation art...
's 'Local Radio Orchestra' for 12 x digital audio players, 24 x short range FM transmitters, and 12 x portable FM Radios, broadcasting a drone ensemble across the entire FM dial for you to tune out and tune in.
See also
- Drone metalDrone metalDrone metal is a style of heavy metal that melds the slow tempos and heaviness of doom metal with the long-duration tones of drone music...
alias Drone doom - a subgenre of heavy metal and doom metal - Space musicSpace musicSpace music, also called spacemusic, is an umbrella term, synonymous with a segment of New Age Music and Ambient Music, used to describe music that evokes a feeling of contemplative spaciousness. Space music can be found within a wide range of genres. It is particularly associated with ambient, New...
- some drone music also fall inside this umbrella genre
External links
- Online playlist of 6 drone pieces (available from accredited institutions or with a library login) at the Database of Recorded American MusicDatabase of Recorded American MusicThe Database of Recorded American Music is a continually growing, online resource providing on-demand, high-quality streaming access to nearly 9,000 essential musical works from 15 record labels, along with their liner notes, album art, and other related materials...
(from Pauline OliverosPauline OliverosPauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
, Alvin LucierAlvin LucierAlvin Lucier is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and...
, Phill NiblockPhill NiblockPhill Niblock is a composer, filmmaker, videographer, and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.-Biography:...
, Charlemagne PalestineCharlemagne PalestineCharlemagne Palestine is an American minimalist composer, performer, and visual artist...
, Ellen FullmanEllen FullmanEllen Fullman is a composer, instrument builder, and performer. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area...
, and Eliane RadigueEliane RadigueEliane Radigue is a French electronic music composer. She started her work in the 1950s and her first creations were presented in the late 1960s. Until 2000 her work was almost exclusively created on a single synthesizer, the ARP 2500 modular system and tape...
) - Online playlist of 10+ drone-based pieces (MP3) at Avant-Avant (from Theater of Eternal Music, MacLiseAngus MacLiseAngus MacLise was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground.-Biography:...
/ConradTony ConradTony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
/CaleJohn CaleJohn Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
, Sunn O)))Sunn O)))Sunn O))) is an American doom metal band known for its synthesis of diverse genres including drone, ambient, noise, and black metal. Supported by a varying cast of collaborators, the band has two core members: Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson .-History:Sunn O))) is named after the Sunn...
, etc.)