Drone Doom

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Drone / Drone Doom

Development phase: 1992/1993
Place of origin: Washington , USA
Stylistic precursors
Minimal Music , Stoner Doom , Sludge
Pioneers
Earth , The Melvins
Instruments typical of the genre
Guitar , electric bass , sampling

Drone Doom , often simply Drone ( English drone ), is an extreme subgenre of Doom Metal . The genre emerged at the beginning of the 1990s and is characterized by particularly slow rhythms and chord progressions as well as heavily distorted electric guitars.

history

Prehistory and beginning

Dylan Carlson, here live with Earth 2009, translated ideas from minimal music into the context of a rock band

The first approaches of drone doom emerged beyond the pop culture influenced music with minimal music . In particular the work of La Monte Young , Terry Riley and Tony Conrad whose Dream Music anticipated the basics of Drone Doom. According to Earth founder and guitarist Dylan Carlson, the transfer of this minimal music into the context of a rock band was a key idea that Earth should express. In particular, Carlson makes reference to the conceptual writings of La Monte Young.

The earliest Drone Doom publications were made in the first half of the 1990s. Both representatives, Earth and The Melvins , came from the hardcore punk and metal scene in the US state of Washington , where they appeared with their first releases, which in retrospect are often attributed to the stoner doom or sludge .

The style was initiated with the Melvins releases Joe Preston and Lysol, both of which appeared in 1992, and, in particular, with the Earth album Earth 2: Special Low-Frequency Version from 1993. The Melvins experimented with the track Boris on the album Bullhead in 1991 with slower and longer song structures, in relation to their earlier releases. With the EP Joe Preston and the album Lysol , later renamed the Melvins , the band moved to a slow, repetitive game that is occasionally discussed as the beginning of the drone doom genre. However, compared to Earth 2: Special Low-Frequency Version, The Melvins' releases are viewed more as products of a rock band and less as a fundamentally conceptual musical approach. In most appraisals of the genre, the Earth album is considered to be the first full-fledged album of the style.

Advancement and popularization

Groups like Monarch !, here live 2015, built their music on the ideas of Earth and The Melvins

Under the influence of The Melvins and Earth, several international music groups have appeared since the late 1990s, which adapted, varied and presented the style with other influences. Nadja from Canada and The Angelic Process from the United States played drone under the influence of shoegazing and ambient , the British Moss pinned occult and HP Lovecraft- inspired texts to the drone and the New Zealand Black Boned Angel combined the genre with elements of dark ambient . Khlyst , Uncertainty Principle , Persistence in Mourning , Auaesuve , Fall of the Gray-Winged One and House of Low Culture followed a similar approach . The variant of the turn to shoegazing and ambient represented by Nadja and The Angelic Process is also continued by groups such as Methadrone or Mamiffer . Occasionally this variant is differentiated from other drone representatives as Dronegaze or Ambient Drone Doom with a separate term. Another mix of Ambient and Drone Doom, but combined with elements of Funeral Doom , are presented by the projects Gruulvoqh and Arcane Voidsplitter by Belgian musician Stijn van Cauter . The Portuguese project Bosque and the Russian project Aarsland also approached the drone doom from the funeral doom.

Further stylistic overlaps are often with Stoner Doom , with performers such as Bongripper , Dark Buddha Rising or Ufomammut , as well as with Sludge with groups such as Khanate , Stumm , Monarch! or Black Shape of Nexus . With performers such as Corrupted and Boris , two of the best-known groups in the genre, there is a lively Japanese drone doom scene that occasionally overlaps and cooperates with representatives of the Japanoise , particularly Merzbow .

The group Sunn O))) occupies a special position for the popularity of the drone . It is generally regarded as the best-known group in the genre and is widely received. Earth and Boris are considered to be anywhere near successful, the other representatives of the genre are not so well known. The label Southern Lord des Sunn-O))) - guitarist Greg Anderson is one of the most important companies in the genre with releases by Khanate, Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine , Sunn O))), Boris and Earth.

Stylistic features

The NME and The-Wire editor Louis Pattison describes the genre as a structured by simple core properties style: "slowness, repetition, volume [and] relentless blackness".

Typical for this minimal style are strongly booming overdriven guitar sounds and extremely slow or free rhythms . The guitars are usually tuned lower and enhanced with reverb and echo effects. Most of the sound produced is in the lower frequency range. Vocals and drums are often missing, which reinforces an avant-garde impression. Due to the length of the pieces, which often extend over ten minutes, the mixing with noise elements and the attested lack of movement in the music, the overall sound is assumed to be a dissolution of "common song structures".

The self-staging by Sunn O))) supports the ritual character of a drone-doom concert

The standing tone of the guitars that fade as long as possible, which are often amplified by feedback, echo or reverb effects, is characteristic of the genre. In order to amplify such effects, the instruments are played through several interlinked guitar amplifiers . Likewise, guitars are connected to bass amplifiers in order to achieve a typical booming sound. This way of playing is said to have a physically noticeable and meditative effect , especially for concerts , which Sunn O))) in particular supports with a ritualistic appearance.

“The linking of several guitar amplifiers turned up to the limit makes the music physically perceptible to the maximum, overdrive, feedback as well as reverb and echo effects expand the booming sound. [...] Thus rhythm, riffs and melodies are dissolved and are almost non-existent. The enormous sound pressure can put the listener into a kind of trance, a concert can develop into a spiritual event, a ritual. "

- Arne Eber: Aesthetics of Doom

Well-known representatives

proof

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Louis Pattison: Heavy, Heavier, Heaviest: A Beginner's Guide To Doom-Drone. Boilerroom.tv, February 17, 2015, accessed March 15, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c Unedited EARTH vs WIRE. The Wire, November 2005, accessed March 15, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c Aristarchos: The History Of Doom Metal Part Three: Alternative Doom. Metalstorm, March 8, 2013, accessed March 15, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b Dave Segal: The Unbearable Heaviness of Being. The Stranger, December 18, 2013, accessed March 15, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Kevin Jacob: Nadja: Thaumogenesis. Metal Ireland, accessed March 20, 2018 .
  6. ^ The Angelic Process. metalstorm, accessed March 20, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Ian Morrissey: Gruulvoqh. Doom-Metal.com, accessed May 21, 2020 .
  8. ↑ terraasymmetry: Arcane Voidsplitter: Voice of the Stars. Grizzlybutts, Retrieved April 26, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Bosque. Doom-Metal.com, accessed August 1, 2019 .
  10. ^ Riccardo Veronese: Aarsland: memorial. Doom-Metal.com, accessed July 16, 2020 .
  11. ↑ a b c Arne Eber: Aesthetics of Doom . Ed .: ResettWorld. S. 31 .
  12. ↑ Thorsten Zahn, Petra Schurer: Emotions in slow motion. Rolling Stone , June 2003, archived from the original on November 12, 2014 ; accessed on March 18, 2017 .