Noise, Experimental, Drone music is New American Visionary Art

With the upcoming Visionary Art spore, i felt it relevant to write about a sub-subculture(s) that many on Evolver might not be familiar with....and something I have been deeply involved in....

There have been musicians/artists who have utilized a variety of homemade self-created instruments, "recorded sound" as instrument, or taken a certain genre and pushed the limits of what can be defined as 'music.' John Cage (neoclassical), Charlemagne Palestine (drone, neoclassical), Smegma (noise/ambient), Whitehouse (harsh noise/powerviolence), Keiji Haino (guitar noise/psychedelic), the whole 1960s/70s German kraut rock movement (with its ambient space atmospheres and synthesizer use) are all examples of older generations of musicians of the last hundred years who have paved roads for unclassifiable music that seems to intentionally break down boundaries of description and language (and also intentionally or not, evokes/invokes spiritual qualities in performance/sound). (This is my perspective, to get a more academic history, view the convenient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_(music) )

Among these and many other influences, this has evolved into what is now a vast underground network of musicians, magicians, and perhaps post-post-post-modern cultural (de)constructing philosophers. I could not begin to encompass it all in a single definition, and each city or region in the US has its own multiple identities within the general terms noise or experimental, or drone or ambient. What I would like to do is introduce a little about a lot of different musicians/communities/ideas, in the hope that it can make some sense to you and show you where you can learn more.

There is definitely a spiritual intention with a lot of the music, a lot of the drone music especially seems to draw inspiration from the multicultural music of meditation or altered states of consciousness technology that all older cultures have (Buddhist chants, Indian ragas, gamelan, Celtic paganism, New Orleans voodoo, American indigenous musics)...

House shows are a big aspect of this, it is much more communal, no reliance on business structures and everyone simply creates the experience together. You need to have the right room or basement for this though, hopefully also soundproof. And friendly neighbors.

A few of the most popular (and older) acts or communities in the US would include....
Wolf Eyes (Michigan)
http://www.wolfeyes.net/
Been around for over 10 years, very dark music with industrial influence and homemade electronics (including a huge cello-like stringed instrument I've seen them play, its made out of a very very long 2x4?)

Laundry Room Squelchers (Miami Florida)
www.squelchers.com/
This is a bizarre collective of musicians/dancers/artists, their performances are very spontaneous, usually involving very loud noise and handing televisions throughout the audience (maybe look it up on Youtube)
They also host the International Noise Conference in Miami every February, over 100 artists from all across the US come to play for 15 minutes each, for free, it is 3 days of mania in Little Haiti.

Providence Rhode Island has been a center of weird/experimental music culture for years, with many record labels and infamous artists. Load Records (www.loadrecords.com/) has a good number of international experimental artists. Lazy Magnet is one of my favorites from this city, his music is completely different every time you see him, from strange dance club music to acoustic interpretations of his songs,, to punk rock anthems, to harsh noise and tape collage, whatever he's feeling I guess. His music really is magical and he made this album “He Sought For That Magic By Which All The Glory And Mystic Chivalry Were Made To Shine – or – Is Music Even Good?” which is a collage of many different music genre (dance, harsh noise, punk rock, goth, ambient, tape collage, movie soundtrack) and it sounds like your speakers are exploding from another dimension.

Portland Oregon has a huge noise scene...I lived there a couple years ago and ran house shows every month. Some of the most interesting artists were Daniel Menche ( I would describe it as organic ambient music http://esophagus.com/htdb/menche/bio.html), Oscillating Innards (very harsh noise and collage, he now does Concern which is sort of the light side to OxIx, very peaceful heavenly drone music http://forcedbloom.com/), Smegma (a group that has been around since the 70s, utilising self created instruments and circuit-bent www.myspace.com/smegmatheoriginal)....

Baltimore is a huge haven for experimental music. Nautical Almanac has been around since the early nineties (http://heresee.com/nauticallink.htm), their music is really different every time using all homemade electronics and other things. They also have a library http://www.esotericlibrary.org/ . One of my favorite artists is Melissa Moore, she makes music as Whispers for Wolves http://babyuniverses.wordpress.com and it is a collage of semi-Buddhist folk music and strange meditative ambient soundscapes. Another infamous act here is Sejayno, one of the members has built a totally new sci-fi instrument called Ciat-Lombarde http://www.ciat-lonbarde.net/

New York is too large and diverse to even start to classify much.....Tony Conrad is an artist who may still reside here, he has been creating experimental drone music since the 1960s and has had wide influence....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Conrad .......Genetrix Peace is a crystal bowl ensemble, one of the participants used to make very intricate drone/trance music (using violin, flute, voice, sound collage) as theholyexperiment http://www.genetrixpeace.com/t-h-e-h-o-l-y-e-x-p-e-r-i-m-e-n-t.html

Los Angeles of course has many noise/experimental musicians.....Infinite Body makes gorgeous synthesizer music that sometimes sounds like a classical symphony and sometimes like a dream from another life http://www.myspace.com/pleasenottoday . The Jugular Forest label puts out mostly ambient/space music cassettes http://jugularforest.com .

There are a myriad of others too many to list in one post.....hopefully if this interests anyone, this can be a bridge between many communities and encourage diversity...