Some drone I like, some I pretty actively dislike. Tony Conrad really grates with me, I can't find any musicality in his work whatsoever, but there is plenty of guitar-based drone (Phill Niblock, Rafael Toral, Keith Fullerton Whitman) that I fnd quite beautiful. It also depends on the tone of the drone - bassy drones don't do much for me, and so a lot of heavy-metal type drone loses my attention quite quickly. Harmonic layering goes down very well with me too.

I would go for "Untitled #99" by Francisco Lopez - it's long and heavenly.
But only at 1 pm, when it's all quiet and you feel drowsy - as Bytor said, the perfect drone listening conditions.

really? i think he's great! the gig he played here in november was one of the best i've seen lately, he just played violin drones for over an hour but it was never boring...

as for (more) good drone, anla courtis is great!


EDIT: WTF? i wrote that tony played over a year, but actually it was just an hour...

How is drone a genre? How? That makes no sense? Or does it? Surely 'drone' means a long continuous note/ chord? Surely that applies to several million things? Are Sunn O))) part of the same genre as the overwhelming majority of Asian music? Or large parts of African music? Or most European medieval art/ eccesiastical music? Or Irish, Scottish, Welsh, French, Spanish, Balkan, Russian (etc) folk traditions? Or large parts of Western/ East Asian 'avant-garde' music? Or early Electroacoustic music? [etc, etc]


I understand that some words are used in several sense, and that genres are often given confusing names, but is drone actually considered a genre by anyone? Am I the only one here who is utterly baffled by this thread? No offence to its progenitor, but I am mightily confused.

One of the most enthralling live pieces I've seen happened last fall when tomutonttu used a toy whistle to create a beautiful collage of droning sounds.

Taste is taste but it is terribly wrong to assume that a sustained chord by one musician will essentially sound like the one by another.One of the criticisms that drones generally get(and often by people who haven't listened to enough of them to see that there is a huge variety) is that the sound is kinda static.That's terribly wrong and technically incorrect because fluctuations,modulations,effects,envoirement etc will play a big part in the way the music will sound and affect the listener.

isn't this just talking about music that uses drones or music where drones are the predominant feature rather than a discussion about the fictional genre Drone?

Very true, Mr Marras. A Sarod is a different instrument to a Tabla or Duggi, both are different from an amplified electric guitar, all three are different to an synthesised keyboard tone, and that's not to mention Hurdy Gurdys or a looped Saxophone or any number of instruments, let alone mentioning the different ways in which drones are used on those specific instruments.

Edit: And a hell yeah to Mr & Bowels, to whom I'd like to enquire "how's it going boss?"

The sacred name of 'The Drone' has been dragged into this filth so i guess the discussion will concentrate on it generally rather than the more often than not unexciting way it is used by musicians from a more rock orientated background.

No offence taken. To make things more clear when I started this thread I meant to discuss mainly bands like sunn o))) , boris, earth and so on, sorta "modern" drone, not "droning" guitar sounds/electronic experiments etc.etc., which are waaaay older and to an extent waaaay more interesting to my ears.

i'm glad you're aknowledging the hierarchy that exists between us mr glice. things are OK at the moment. and yourself?

It was an ironic gesture, obviously. I like to make you proles feel better about yourselves. It's all a précis to my crushing you like an ant, or similar-sized arthropod.

I'm well, thanks. Strapped for cash like a silly person, but new job and that sort of gayness. I've cut down my masturbation habit, which is quite exciting.

Nefeli: I generally refer to that sort of thing as doom music, which I understand to be a sort of post-black metal thing, although I don't really understand metal genres in the slightest.

there is clearly a drone scene, it's been mostly on tiny cdr-labels... of course it's not all the stuff is exclusively drone, but droney elements are used... bands like birchville cat motel, uton, vibracathedral orchestra, yellow swans, hototogisu, bjerga/iversen, thuja, drunjus, anla courtis, A.M., my cat is an alien, taurpis tula, double leopards, skaters, rameses III, peter wright etc. etc.

Oh, shit, sorry Nefeli. I meant Nicfit. Sorry sorry sorry, that's me not paying attention and assuming that only one person could possibly think of a name that begins with a N.

doom has been around since the 80s, it's not a post-black metal developement

Drones infiltrated western music for as long as i can remember.What you're basically saying is that there is a resurgence or,better still,some attention is being paid to them again.Doom IS a subgenre of Metal and therefore a development of it.

What in the name of satan is "post-black metal"? This description has been used to categorize anaal nathrakh for instance...

Oh yeah, drone music. I like drone music.

i love drone music. its where i feel most at home.

Racist.You're basically saying that whoever has a username that starts with the letter N is the same.Shame on you.Racist.

worse than that goody one i heard.