DRONAEMENT

Allein …  unter Menschen

CD, afe

This one was released in 1999 already, but because I found my interest in Dronaement only lately and getting it only a few weeks ago, but mostly because of the seminal importance of this record, I have chosen to give it a few words nevertheless. Why important? Well, Dronaement aka Marcus Obst single-handedly put flags down on the two polar opposites of drone – with a name like that it would be obvious that we are talking about drones here, right? – leaving the whole wide world inbetween to be explored. So, whatever drone you are listening to now, you can put it down in a matrix that says, this is closer to “allein” or closer to “unter Menschen”. And even though both sides owe to a long history of artists exploring those sides in the past, it is a fascinating treat to hear them so close together.

“Allein” is a twenty four minute single note drone in G, because “… is the tone of the day – it means meditation”. Don’t expect monotony, though. The tone starts to vibrate, jump, sways, slingers, swings and gets distorted within those twenty four minutes a lot. All in miniscule dimensions, I must add, but if you have chosen to listen to it, really get into it, you’ll start to hear much more in a single tone than you ever expected. Have you ever heard someone say: “if someone plays a single note, and does it right, it can be great”? Usually, said by mediocre rock-musicians who are still waiting for that big hit, but anyway. This piece can help you on your way to understand that saying. There are no big bursts or double or multiple layers of sound, that you would usually expect to find after a few minutes. I am not even sure if some of those side-noises I hear are made by CD-player, by my imagination or if they are really on this record. Then there is the feeling of stasis again, of nothing changing at all. Ancestors to this approach might be found as Brain Eno, La Monte Young or Riyoi Ikeda.

The second track “unter Menschen” is the complete opposite of the first one, but then again not at all. And I am not only referring to an almost similar length. Here the source is not a single note, but rather the multi-sourced constant noise-level of a public place. A crowded public place with traffic, talk, movement or people and things and so on. Have you ever sat down in a big shopping mall or on a shopping street, closed your eyes and really listened to the noise if the city around? I could spend hours doing that, but I am usually busy doing something else, going somewhere, meeting people, buying something, whatever. Like everyone else. So it takes a record to remind me of the fact that our environment produces a lot of noise / sounds on a steady basis. (The word noise, whenever I use it, is never meant as a judgement. Not like my parents used it. But as a simple description of various kinds of frequencies that have no structure.) This one has a lot more variation of course, than the first track, but then again it is fascinating to experience the actually quite constant and static level of noise that can be found in a public place. Here, I guess, it is a train or bus station. There is echoes of people shouting, cars, whistles, talk, and ever so on. All sounds from natural sources, though I guess a little manipulated here and there. Or is it again my mind playing tricks on me? Well, if anything, realizing that you can’t ever trust your hearing or any one of your senses, once again, is an important thing.

Putting down such two extremely opposing tracks next to each other and thereby focusing also on the analogies between them, is a daring act. Especially when the two most extreme bases have been covered. Pure, white noise a lá Merzbow is actually closer to the single note drone than to the people’s sounds.

Dronaement involve another layer of meaning by naming the first track “allein” which means “alone” and the second one “unter Menschen” which translates as “among people”. This is clearly not only understandable as referring to the source of the tracks – a single note alone and field recordings done in a public place in a crowd of people – but put together denominates the feeling of solitude in urban spaces, the estrangement of the modern individual quite nicely. These issues have always been central to modern artists of all ranges and genres (once again I want to nudge you to checking out the great “the noise and the city”-compilation on autres directions). Also the opposition of sounds produced by instruments (don’t matter if they are electric or not, digital or analogue) with the intent of making music to sounds made involuntarily without the intention of producing any kind of art, is more than hinted at here.

There is a third track also on this record, which I won’t go into here, because this short little whatever might destroy my neat theory I have built up in this review, and that would be a real pity. Another word, though, which is true for other releases by Dronaement as well: if a CD-ROM comes in a packaging as nice as this one, there really is no difference to a professionally manufactured CD in design. Maybe in commercial factors and especially definitely in spirit and attitude – but that is a good thing.