Three drones

Three Drones (one)

Wóma - Three Drones (One)

Wóma

Three Drones (two)

Wóma - Three Drones (Two)

Three Drones

Three Drones (three)

Wóma - Three Drones (Three)

Drán & Ongalnes is a collection of drone works originally released in 2016 as a limited edition cassette run by Manchester noise label, Sacred Tapes. Here they are are, presented again on Hiru, remastered and re-released in full digital glory.


From Wóma

These works follow on from my earlier release, Three Drones. Both were created solely using a steel sound sculpture called a bow chime - essentially, a large stainless steel resonator affixed to a series of tuned rods. Each of the pieces is improvised in nature and the collection of works as a whole were recorded over the space of about a week in 2016.

When I made them I particularly wanted to experiment with layering the bow chime's tones in harmonies, and make works that included some of its more 'vocalistic' qualities. They variously combine primitive, voice-like sounds, almost reminiscent of chant or even whale-song, with deep, resonating waves of sound.

What results - and what I find particularly interesting about the bow chime's sound - is a sometimes harmonic, sometimes dissonant tangle of microtonal layers of sound. Although the bow chime is tuned to play particular pitches, its tuning is never precise or exact and, perhaps as though it’s fighting against being controlled, its tones almost always favour the resonant frequencies of the steel.

There exists a kind of precarious mastery, on the part of the performer, over the acoustic properties of the steel; one in which nature and physics threaten to overthrow order and plunge the instrument’s sound back into a sort of raw, unordered and uncontrolled state. For me, this is music that sits on the very edge of order, music that teeters on the brink of collapse; perhaps it even threatens an anarchic return to a primitive world of cacophony and noise.

Drán & Ongalnes

Wóma - Drán & Ongalnes

Hiru // hum.
A micro-label releasing sonic explorations in the fields of drone and electronica.

HIRU RECORDINGS