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Everybody must
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With roots in primitive musical forms, drone music’s modern monotony and trance-inducing pulse was Westernized in the ’60s by minimalist composers like LaMonte Young and Terry Riley. In the ’70s, folks like the cornerstone of the uptown noise and No Wave scene, Rhys Chatham, as well as the Velvet Underground’s John Cale, began merging the monotonic pulse with the power and volume of rock. This is probably where White/Light’s roots truly lie (note the Velvets nod in their name), and although there are some harsh and extreme frequencies present, the Chicago duo tend to be just as comfortable exploring lulls and near silence as they are attacking with screaming sheets of noise. The Mirror spoke with pump organist/electronics guy Jeremy Lemos, partner in White/Light with Matt Clark, over the phone from his home in Chicago. Mirror: There seems to be a lot of young people getting into drone music, through the burgeoning noise scene as well as the big influence of bands like Earth and Sunn O))), whose roots are in metal. Do you think this is a positive move? Jeremy Lemos: I think there’s a lot of energy happening in all forms of, uh, interesting music right now. I used to do shows to, like, seven nerdy guys who just wanted to know what kind of pedals you were using. It’s kind of become an acceptable thing in a rock club on a Saturday night, to see noise or drone bands. I think, through bands like Earth and others, we’re starting to see a lot of people with a metal background approaching drone from a unique angle. There is definitely that cross-pollination happening now. M: A lot of people who were brought up on a steady diet of pop might find drone a bit harsh. What is it that draws you to drone? JL: If I’m listening to drone music on my iPod, it will really draw me into my environment and amplify what is happening around me. M: What is the ultimate effect you would like to have on a listener? JL: I guess disorientation is really the nature of what we do. It’s just so much fun to see people lost while you are playing, and afterwards talking to people who were really surprised about how concentrated towards the music they had become. It’s a positive and rewarding thing that people can get lost for a half-hour before coming back down to the ground. M: You spend a lot of time recording White/Light and working with other artists through your studio, Semaphore, as well as collaborating with other artists, but do you find that to really enjoy drone music, you have to experience it live? JL: What we do live and what we do in the studio are really different. Live, I really have to be loud, but when I’m recording, I’m really sensitive to loud volume. I don’t really know which I like better because on record, there’s really no references on how they get these sounds, which I think can be really interesting. Live is really different because it’s an experimental, improvised form of music—sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. When things are working and you are channelling sounds you want to come out of your amp, and the sound is moving your organs and your bones, it’s just the greatest feeling in the world, to be in control of that. It’s a really spiritual thing. WITH ECHOES STILL SINGING LIMBS AT |
