The Droneuary concept came to me in late 2012. It was inspired by what Darren Hayman (Hefner) had done in 2011 called January Songs where he wrote & recorded a new song each day in January often with collaborators. So I wanted to do a drone version of the same thing, but life was in the way of me being able to do it & I tried to run a Kickstarter to help me get the equipment to record in this way, but it didn't get financing. So the idea was in the background & in 2018 I decided to revive it in a way I could manage, getting a different artist to have a different new piece each day with their own take on drone from new age to industrial. & so here we are with over a two months worth of tracks & I think we're going to do it again next year. Thanks for your interest & support, it always means a lot to me.
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March 21 Space Sweeper - A-11
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Throughout January, Silber Records are doing "Droneuary"- putting out a new drone work from a different artist every day, all of them available on Bandcamp with a "name your price" setting- for the sake of good experimental music, here's hoping that enough people don't just type '0' all the time. Some of the drones are only five minute atmospheres, while others are whole extended soundscapes spanning over twenty minutes, or in the case of the Grand Kali Ma offering, almost 47 minutes of deep rumbling sinisterness. It's a series certainly worth checking out.
I've singled out "Skaro 1963" mainly because of the title- I'm a semi-closeted Whovian. Eschewing the famous 'Dalek ship' radiophonic workshop atmosphere, instead Switchblade Kid offers up a dark sci-fi texture with metallic undertones, the constant whirrs of distant grinding alien machinery reverberating into abstraction. It's mentally transformative and rewarding to listen to.
Other highlights so far from Droneuary, which we're still only halfway through, include the wailing relentless alarm call of Subscape Annex's "Shimmer", and the more overtly prog rock guitar noodling of Electric Bird Noise's "Noitatidem". Ocean In A Bottle's "Dawn Chorus" is notably different, building from a long period of layered genuine birdsong into much warmer chords.
Silber say that they've got so many submissions lined up for the series that it might well run into February. Here's hoping that they get more and have to start thinking of puns on the word 'March'.
~ Stuart Bruce, Chain D.L.K.