What’s that sound?
Local ensemble turns members’ isolation into healing, meditative new work
“Where’s the hook?” More than ever, that’s the go-to question behind today’s instant-gratification approach to popular music — as realized by hyper-formulaic 3-minute tunes that inundate streaming platforms like pimple-clusters for an hour or two before vanishing into the ever-quickening past. For that slice of the listening demographic, “Isolation/Collaboration,” the debut album by The New London Drone Orchestra, is probably not going to provide a lot of answers.
The hint might be in the “Drone” part of the ensemble’s name.
It’s one of many descriptors, along with “ambient” and “minimalism,” that attempts to capture a mesmeric, organic, shape-shifting and sneakily popular genre — one where the music throbs, pulses, stretches like a couch-cat, burbles and wanders lonely as a cloud that somehow transcends the properties of atmosphere and continues to meander through deep space.
To accomplish these sounds, drone music relies on a variety of synthesizers, unconventional and/or indigenous instrumentation, tape loops, field- and found-recordings, treatments, processed electronics and, yes, even the occasional guitar or bass. Just a few of the better-known artists are Harold Budd, Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Aphex Twin, Bass Communion, Sunn O))), La Monte Young, Robert Rich, Boards of Canada and ... well, see “sneakily popular,” above.
The New London Drone Orchestra, though, somewhat modifies a tradition typified by solo or small-group dynamics. As conceptualized by founder Pamela Wilson, the NLDO’s core purpose is to nourish a loose, come-and-go roster of musicians — as many as 18 on one memorable session and with a core group of 10 regulars — that explores the psychological and healing properties of sustained, collective, meditative ambient music at the expense of soloing or displays of virtuosity.
The group has been around for a few years now. They started in the old Spark Makerspace on Golden Street in New London, then moved rehearsals and public gigs to Harkness Chapel on the campus of Connecticut College. Late last year, discussions began among group members about recording a live performance to release as an album.
Then COVID-19 hit and, by definition, the locked-at-home safety requirements disrupted the recording plans.
Or did they?
Born of necessity
It occurred to group member Tim Wolf that perhaps they could twist the situation — and its heavy mood of anxiety, fear,
and enforced solitude — to their benefit. They could record separate and improvised tracks from home and then, by computer, assemble, edit, and mix the results. For two weeks in mid-March, seven members of the NLDO did just that.
“We knew it would be a very different experience,” Wolf says by Zoom chat from his home outside Hartford earlier this week. “(Our whole philosophy is built around) people playing live together, responding to each other in the moment, and creating as we go. What this did was change the paradigm a little bit. It wasn’t spontaneous anymore and gave more control to those of us who chose to do the mixes from the submitted solo tracks — and suddenly we could really be intentional.”
Using a tonal center loosely based on the key of D required of Wolf’s West African Donso Nogoni — a six-stringed harp — the tracks began to flow in. Participating, along with Wolf and Wilson, who co-produced “Isolation/Collaboration,” were Jack Beal (bass guitar/electronics), Jeff Day (electric guitar, Line 6 DL4, iron bar, knitting needles), Amy Hannum (voice, body percussion, water), Alex Khan (Korg MS-20, Eurorack modular synthesizer, tape loops, police scanner), and John Schwenk (Continuum Fingerboard, electric piano).
The musicians contributed 16 individual tracks and, over the subsequent two weeks, five of the players created the mixes that ended up on the album. “Isolation/Collaboration” contains almost an hour and a half of music over six pieces that range from three minutes in length to over a half-hour. They ebb and flow in seamless and hypnotic fashion; at times sad and wistful; at times brooding and menacing; at times almost surgical in the sounds of machination and pulse. It’s great stuff that not only provides an effective soundtrack to life during the virus, but also soothes and keeps the listener aware.
To describe the assimilation process, Wolf says, “Think of it as everything got put into a hopper. Everyone could download those original tracks and work with them. There were no parameters, and it was up to the individual how their tracks were arranged.”
Once Wolf got the separate submissions, he listened carefully and comprehensively to the dynamics and certain sounds or movements that piqued his curiosity, and ultimately crafted and blended the finished album. Wolf says it worked mostly because of the band’s core ethos: Trust in each other.
“The ability of a community of musicians who regularly get together and play over a period of time — allowed us to relax and know confidently that we were going to somehow tap into something. In dance, you’d call it the kinesthetic memory ... In music, maybe it’s just the audial memory of having played together, and we could trust something cohesive was going to come out of it.”
Humble beginnings
Wilson regards and the album as an accomplishment to be proud of — even if such things are not necessarily what she envisioned at the start, when she simply wanted musical interaction with other people in parameters that fit her own abilities.
“I’m not a thoroughly gifted musician when I play,” Wilson laughs during a recent Zoom interview, “but I do have a lot of feeling when I play. The notes and rhythm aren’t that great, but I knew it would be valuable spiritually and psychologically to play with other people.”
After seeing random Facebook videos of, first, Pharoah Sanders performing his flutteringly lovely “Kazuko” with harmonium player Paul Asrlanian in an empty tunnel near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and, next, a group playing Appalachian drone music, Wilson had an epiphany.
She thought, “Ha! I have a harmonium!” On the bulletin board at Telegraph Records, Wilson posted a 3-by-5 index card that said she was looking for co-creators interested in making drone music. She ran a similar ad on Craig’s List as well as on an internal list at Connecticut College, where she works.
“Next, I set up in Spark Makerspace and taped a sign in the window, thinking I could maybe recruit passersby. I assumed I’d be by myself for a few months — and I was never by myself. I wanted people to feel free to come and go with no obligation. It’s all about good vibes.
“I think there’s very much a spiritual component to what we do. For me, that’s actually more important than the musical elements. It creates such a sense of calm for our players. We’ll come in amped up after our day and, after the first thing we play, we’re all breathing more calmly and there’s such a non-judgmental relationship in the way we work.”
Wilson thinks this philosophy carried over into “Isolation/Collaboration” regardless of the segmented process. “I listen to it a lot, first when we were sequencing the tracks and I had to listen. And then I realized it’s splendid to work from home to this music during this time. Yes, it’s tense and there’s an element of foreboding, but it captures the mood of what we’re all going through, that sense of aloneness. Ultimately, I think there’s are very positive effects to the sound and I hope it slips out to the community.”
Isolated? Not at all
Wolf and Wilson and the group ultimately decided to release the album digitally and not in CD or vinyl formats. This maintains the audio quality of such a lengthy work and also makes it easier for interested parties to get immediate access.
Interestingly, despite the seeming small-town insularity of the NLDO, their reputation IS growing. They’ve performed at 24 Drone in Hudson, New York — one of the premier drone festivals in the world. And earlier recordings have been released on compilations from Silent Records, an eminent drone label in the Bay Area.
“Silent actually showed some interest in releasing ‘Isolation/Collaboration,’” Wolf says, “but it was going to take them till the fall to put it out. We thought about it, but we really just put our heads together and decided the album is of the moment and we wanted to release it now, when people are experiencing what we’re all experiencing.”