Sixties Electronic Drone Question
 

Does anyone know of a band/musician working in the sixties/early seventies interested in electronic drones in a sort of dark, almost 'mind-control' kind of a way? The only thing I can thinbk of, but which is a pretty good example is White Noise's 'Electric Storm in Hell'. sorry I can't be any clearer than that, it's just for a project I'm working on.

Edit: Listening to White Noise now, too 'song based' for what I'm thinking about.

That's a great album, it seems my copy is lost in my brothers collection somewhere it seems, but anyways i don't know if i'd consider it really heavy electronci drone music i mean sure yeah it has elements then again i haven't listened to this in a long long time... anyways to answer yr question the first thing i think of is minimalist music from that era from the likes of LaMonte Young, Charlemagne Palestine and Tony Conrad... Tony Conrad is still very active in the scene...

Add Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley to the above list. I doesn't sound like it's any of them you're after though, but all drone-y to an extent. Palestine wins that particular game, to my mind.

How about Pierre Henry's "Cortical Art" album, made by using brainwave activity as a sound source. Pretty far out, that.

Takehisa Kosugi's "Catch Wave" might fall into this, but I don't know what his motivations were.

The Pierre Henry thing certainly sounds good. I just listened to some Delia Derbyshire stuff for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and, although not drone based at all, seems exactly the type of thing I'm after. The only problem being that her CDs, as with all the RWS stuff, are going for absolutely daft sums.

just wanted to say "an electric storm" is fucking great, an inspiration to me. but i can't answer your question..white noise has a couple other albums though.

oh and to add to that, i remember hearing "white noise 2'' and it didn't have songs on it.. just drones..

there's that european avant-garde band called AMM, i dunno if that's what you're looking for..they did long improvs w/ prepared guitars, radio mix-ins, cello and other stuff..

I think what I'm looking for is a kind of sci-fi/sound effect/moog type stuff, like what the BBC Radiophonic Workshop were (are?) doing. Sort of a less song oriented Joe Meek 'I Hear a New World' (which, of course, is one of the greatest albums known to mankind) kind of thing. I downloaded Sarramkrop's Hungarian Electronic album, which is utterly fantastic and that's DEFINITELY getting there. Music made by old men and women in labcoats, to read Dan Dare to, basically.

Taj Mahal Travellers (a group led by Takehisa Kosugi whom Mr. Clone mentioned) I think might be exactly the sort of thing you're looking for. I think I can find some links to some of their stuff. Un momento.

http://sector2814.wordpress.com/2007...-july-15-1972/

There's also a Taj Mahal Travellers tour documentary from 1973 on the ubu website: http://www.ubu.com/film/taj.html


For what it's worth, though, I don't really like them all that much. I just can't take all those sci-fi-ish sounds seriously in this context.

edit: It seems I have graduated to the rank of stalker. Hooray!

maybe try these:

morton subotnik - silver apples of the moon
sun ra - concert for the comet kohoutek
tangerine dream - alpha centauri, zeit, atem, electronic meditation
klaus schulze - irrlicht

Quite a bit of what Gyorgy Ligeti did for the soundtrack of 2001 A Space Oddysey fits as well (particularly some of the stuff that wasn't used in the actual movie.) For that matter Walter Carlos' "Timesteps" from A Clockwork Orange has those elements too.

Not really droney, but check out Bruce Haack aswell.
oh, and Cluster

Most of them have been mentioned already. David Rosenboom's Brainwave Music is another good one. I've started a thread about Richard Maxfield yesterday. Check out his music as it's phenomenal.

Maybe try Dick Raaijmakers. Not sure if he was wearing a labcoat, but at least he made his sounds in a labatory, being a researcher for Philips during the 50s-60s. Some of his work is droney, although most of it isn't. It's all weird tape manipulations sound effects stuff though, often with a bit of a sci-fi feel to it. It's definitely a bit in the same corner as that Hungarian electronic album at least.

there are some audio samples here:
http://www.donemus.nl/cd_detail.php?id=85&lang=EN

Bruce Haack = Yes!

Particularly 'Dance Sing And Listen Again And Again'.


http://www.haackmovie.com/

yeah...riley, charlemagne...tangerine dream, klaus schultz...some popol vuh i guess.

but i don't understand something, are you looking for something with a method or purpose (the 'mind control' thing) or were you just describing the type of music you wanted to hear?

Sounds like library music stuff to me, I think.