Various Artists
Drone Islands - The Lost Maps
SCORE: 7.7 extended notes out of 10
For the second volume of the Drone Islands series, curator Raffaele Pezzella enrolled emerging talent along with well established artists to display the ways drone music has been developing and evolving.
In their ever-going quest to document experimental music from all around the globe, Unexplained Sounds Group has made an effort to provide a meticulous process of curation which, ideally, will showcase how this type of music is approached throughout different cultures, while simultaneously promoting and compiling samples from the best representatives of each region. The effort has resulted so fruitful, that it has even spawned different sub-labels with the same goal, but with thematic differences; with Eighth Tower Records, their aim is to shed some light into the darker side of sonic experimentation.
For the second volume of the Drone Islands series, USG founder and curator, Raffaele Pezzella even reached all the way to Tijuana, Mexico to recruit the talent of Gaspar Peralta and enroll him along such legends as Rapoon (from Zoviet-France), Simon Balestrazzi and the corrosive Schloss Tegal, to deliver a multicolored pallet that displays the ways drone music has been developing and evolving; with that as the main objective, it seems fitting to have new talent rubbing shoulders among veterans. It should also be noted that not all of the artists here are strictly or exclusively "drone musicians", therefore, each one will have a unique take on the genre, which saves this album from sounding like it was all performed by the same musician.
Take Bedouinedrone's piece, "Jallianwala-bagh", which sounds more like it should belong in a Ninja Tune sampler, due to its trip-hop groove. It is a highlight in its own right, and even though it may feel out of place, it doesn't stand out in a bad way, as it doesn't come off as too distracting or flow-wrecking. Peralta's contribution -an excerpt from his ambitious 2018 release- is a colossal endeavor that merely hints at the start of something even greater. It goes from claustrophobic to spacious, from unnerving to a state of serenity, and its transitions flow with seamless effort. It is not drone in its pure form, it is an upgrade.
Rapoon and Schloss Tegal both contributed with original tracks -as most of the other artists did- and it’s quite obvious and expected for these songs to be the most rooted to a more recognizable structure. However, this does not imply that “Sphinx Wings” and “Bones of Tartarus” -Rapoon and Tegal’s songs respectively- are dull or predictable. They’re an excellent point of reference which strip down the genre to its bare essence while still pushing it forward: they manage to sound modern, while still keeping tradition alive.
While the first half of the album manages to deliver a fresh take on this stoic genre, the second half plummets the listener into an all too familiar abyss, with classic drone and dark ambient soundscapes. These morose and heavy pieces move with a cadence so dense, they practically bend the space around them while absorbing every photon available. Compare Balestrazzi’s bright, metallic -albeit rusty- textures to the aural black hole that is Taphephobia’s “Light-years from home”; or TraumaTerrestrial’s eerie and crisp sound collage to Tunnels of Āh’s ultra wet and obtuse production in “Red Distribution”, in which the only high-pitched sounds present, mimic the cries for help of some unknown being as it is being engulfed by the darkness. The contrast between these two halves works because it, again, shows the growth of this particular style.
Being launched two years after USG, Eighth Tower Records has been as prolific as its mother-label, putting out almost the same amount of releases. And, for being a label that focuses in a niche genre inside the already niche genre that is experimental music, it is impressive to see how the consistency and variety has remained pretty much stable all throughout its existence; and with an ever growing amount of emerging artists, it seems that Mr. Pezzella will still have a lot of work to do to help us discover what unexplained sounds lie hidden and scattered in the most remote corners the Earth.
