Drøne

Drøne is a collaboration between Mark Van Hoen (Locust, Scala, Seefeel) and Mike Harding, who co-runs both Touch and Ash International. As the name suggests, they construct ambient drone music using field recordings, modular synthesizers, and shortwave radios, resulting in eerie audio fields that force the listener to consider sound's relationship to its environment. On some releases such as 2020's The Stilling, the duo include string arrangements, adding a more elegiac element to the music. The duo first convened for recording sessions in August and September of 2015. Two excerpts were digitally released by Ash International along with drøne T-shirts. In April 2016, Anna von Hausswolff's Pomperipossa Records issued the duo's debut full-length, Reversing Into the Future, which consisted of one haunting, slowly evolving piece titled "This Strange Life." Shortly after the album's release, they recorded a flexi-disc titled Cold Tip for DNA, but the copies were destroyed in the process of manufacturing, and never released. In 2017, drøne released the digital recording Live at Touch Vinyl, Record Store Day LP A Perfect Blind (the project's first recording to include string arrangements), and the self-issued CD Mappa Mundi. Fourth album The Stilling arrived in 2020. The most complex, ornately arranged drøne recording to date, the full-length included contributions by von Hausswolff, Paul Haslinger, and Philip Jeck, as well as parts for strings, baritone guitar, dulcimer, and a 1877 Heny Willis organ recorded at the Union Chapel in London. ~ Paul Simpson