Drone

Drone music is an avant-garde current built on the sustained holding of a note, a chord or a sonic texture, to the exclusion of conventional melody or rhythm. Its roots reach into the drones of traditional music from around the world — Scottish bagpipes, Indian tanpuras, Mongolian throat singing — but its contemporary form emerged in the 1960s through La Monte Young and American minimalism, before being appropriated by experimental rock, metal and electronic music.

Musically, drone cultivates hypnosis through the repetition and minute variation of continuous sonic textures. Instruments range from saturated electric guitar to modular synthesisers, bowed strings and organs. The effect is often physical — the vibration of the drone directly affects the body — and the listening experience is as much meditative as it is concert-going. The genre maintains close ties with doom metal, dark ambient and ritual music.

ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF is one of the most striking figures in contemporary drone, uniting cathedral organ and hypnotic noise. Merzbow explores the boundaries between noise and pure drone. VIOLENT MAGIC ORCHESTRA fuse drone, extreme metal and ritual performance. WYATT E. offer a burning desert drone between blues and psych, and WACLAW ZIMPEL weave bridges between drone, jazz and world music. Kannabinoid represent the heavier, fuzz-drenched wing of the European drone scene.

Drone finds its place at experimental, noise and metal music festivals, as well as in sound art spaces. Events such as Unsound, Aural and Irtijal nights regularly carve out performance spaces for it. Discover all drone festivals and explore related genres like dark ambient and doom metal.