D i s c o g r a p h y
[ go back ]
| The Drone Gnome | format: CDr - released: 2009 | label: Moving Furniture Records You are kindly invited to buy a copy!!
|
|||
 |
In general I do not like the stuff that is categorized as drone music. There are a few exceptions but often times it is about bass and noise. Sometimes the composer mixes subtleties over the basic layer. Sounds that are barely discernable. Others filter the basic layer so that modulations occur. "Listen", people tell me, "can you hear the subtleties that are mixed into the noise?". Yes, can hear them but why does it continue to do so for 20 minutes? And why not get rid of the basic layer so that I can really enjoy those subtleties?
Another gripe is about the continuity of drone music. Whereas traditionally composers build a musical piece note by note, second by second, drone music is layed out and constructed with (very) large chunks of time. These large chunks are then connected with lengthy crossfades. On the one hand that makes it easier for the composer to get to a lengthy piece but on the other hand it is much more difficult than most people think. Controlling time in a musical piece and thereby keeping the listener's attention is mastered by only a few. |
||||
|
|||||
| REVIEWS: Maybe Jos Smolders is just jealous at those musicians who concern them with drone music? Whereas he has to compose his music second by second, 'drone music is lated out and constructed with (very) large chunks of time' - and thus its done easier? Another thing Jos Smolders doesn't like about drone music is that is 'often about bass and noise. Sometimes the composer mixes subtleties over the basic layer. Sounds that are barely discernible. Others filter the basic layer so that modulations occur'. Jos Smolders, always a man to ask him a question and finding an answer, tried his hands on making a drone record. Now his comments (the longer version is at the label website) places us for a few questions too. Any particular drone, mister Smolders? By my estimation there are a variety of appearances on the drone scene, which do not all constitute of 'bass and noise' (just what is noise then anyway?). In Jos' hands there are two pieces, which I refer to as drone music from the microsound end. No analogue synths, or spacious analogue effects and bird twitter, but processed sine waves that glide carefully up and down the scale. I must say that he understands drone music quite well: long sustaining sounds, minimalist, but it wouldn't be Jos Smolders if he knew how to give the material a twist of his own and make it sound like something that is remotely drone based, but yet also more composed, bringing in some action and liveliness to the material. No doubt in a longer form than his usual compositions and certainly towards the end of 'ggrrrr' more noise based than his usual works. I think true drone heads may actually this move Smolders did, and his true fans will be delighted - as I am - with this interesting move. Despite his disqualification of drone music. (FdW) Frans de Waard (vital weekly) |
|||||