Sedimental is an independent recording label based in Greenfield, Massachusetts releasing mainly experimental, sound art, noise, free jazz, avant garde and drone music. It began 20 years ago in Austin, Texas with the first album from ambient-drone group Stars of the Lid and their debut Music for Nitrous Oxide in 1995. It has followed up to present day with specialized releases from Phill Niblock, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Francisco Lopez, Brendan Murray, and Alessandro Bosetti. Most of which are limited editions of 500 copies.
The label prints and presses their vinyl and compact disc releases in house and often with a unique, non-plastic gatefold sleeve.
Related activities include radio (wzbc 90.3 fm- Boston) and Non-Event in conjunction with Dan Hirsch, Susanna Bolle and Bhob Rainey in promoting local, national and international experimental and improvising artists in live settings for the Boston area as well as Mental-Drift in coordinating very infrequent performances in the Pioneer Valley.
Glenn Branca was an American avant-garde composer, guitarist, and luthier. Known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series, he was a driving force behind the genres of no wave, totalism and noise rock. Branca received a 2009 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
Avant-garde metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music loosely defined by use of experimentation and innovative, avant-garde elements, including non-standard and unconventional sounds, instruments, song structures, playing styles, and vocal techniques. Avant-garde metal is influenced by progressive rock and extreme metal, particularly death metal, and is closely related to progressive metal. Some local scenes include Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and Seattle in the United States, Oslo in Norway, and Tokyo in Japan.
Dark ambient is a genre of post-industrial music that features an ominous, dark droning and often gloomy, monumental or catacombal atmosphere, partially with discordant overtones. It shows similarities with ambient music, a genre that has been cited as a main influence by many dark ambient artists, both conceptually and compositionally. Although mostly electronically generated, dark ambient also includes the sampling of hand-played instruments and semi-acoustic recording procedures.
Sunn O))) is an American drone metal band formed in 1998 in Seattle, Washington. The band is known for their distinctive visual style and slow, heavy sound, which blends diverse genres including doom metal, drone, black metal, dark ambient, and noise rock, as well as for their extremely loud live performances.
Southern Lord is an American heavy metal record label that was founded in 1998 by Greg Anderson. It initially specialized in experimental metal: particularly doom metal, stoner rock, and drone metal. The label later expanded its line-up to include artists from black metal, hardcore punk and crust punk bands.
Drone metal or drone doom is a style of heavy metal that melds the slow tempos and heaviness of doom metal with the long-duration tones of drone music. Drone metal is sometimes associated with post-metal or experimental metal.
Bass Communion is a solo project of English musician Steven Wilson, best known for his lead role in the rock band Porcupine Tree. Records released under the name "Bass Communion" are in an ambient or electronic vein - lengthy drone-heavy compositions. They come about as experiments in texture made from processing the sound of real instruments and field recordings.
Drone music, drone-based music, or simply drone, is a minimalist genre of music that emphasizes the use of sustained sounds, notes, or tone clusters called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy compositions featuring relatively slight harmonic variations. La Monte Young, one of its 1960s originators, defined it in 2000 as "the sustained tone branch of minimalism". Music containing drones can be found in many regional traditions across Asia, Australia, and Europe, but the genre label is generally reserved for music originating with the Western classical tradition. Elements of drone music have been incorporated in diverse genres such as rock, ambient, and techno.
Boris is a Japanese band formed in 1992 in Tokyo and composed of drummer Atsuo, guitarist/bassist Takeshi, and guitarist/keyboardist Wata. All three members contribute vocals. Their work has drawn variously on styles such as sludge rock, drone, metal, noise, psychedelia, and minimalism. Boris has released more than 20 studio albums on various labels around the world, as well as a variety of live albums, compilations, EPs, singles, and collaborative albums. They have collaborated with acts such as Sunn O))), Merzbow, Keiji Haino, and guitarist Michio Kurihara.
Brian Chase is an American drummer and drone musician who plays in the New York rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. He was ranked at No. 50 in Gigwise's list of The Greatest Drummers of All Time.
Maeror Tri was an ambient, noise and drone music band from Germany founded in the 1980s which consisted of Stefan "Baraka H" Knappe, Martin "GLIT[s]CH" Gitschel and Helge S. Hammerbrook.
Sub Rosa is a record label based in Brussels specializing in avant-garde music, electronic music, world music and noise music. Directed by Guy-Marc Hinant and Frédéric Walheer, Sub Rosa has released over 250 titles of experimental, drone music, noise music, Musique concrète, ritual music and film music. The label has released archival material related to prominent twentieth-century avant-garde figures such as Marcel Duchamp, William S. Burroughs, James Joyce, and Kurt Schwitters. Sub Rosa also releases material from a number of important electronic music composers, such as ; and traditional music from around the world in anthologies of Inuit sound, the Master Musicians of Joujouka, Tibetan music and Bhutanese music, recorded by John Levy)
Post-metal is a music genre rooted in heavy metal but exploring approaches beyond metal conventions. It emerged in the 1990s with bands such as Neurosis and Godflesh, who transformed metal texture through experimental composition. In a way similar to the predecessor genres post-rock and post-hardcore, post-metal offsets the darkness and intensity of extreme metal with an emphasis on atmosphere, emotion, and even "revelation", developing an expansive but introspective sound variously imbued with elements of ambient, noise, psychedelic, progressive, and classical music, and often shoegaze and art rock. Songs are typically long, with loose and layered structures that discard the verse–chorus form in favor of crescendos and repeating themes. The sound centres on guitars and drums, while any vocals are usually screamed or growled and resemble an additional instrument.
Inky Bloaters is the third solo album by Danielle Dax, an English experimental musician and former member of the Lemon Kittens. It was originally recorded between 1985 & 1987, and released in 1987 on the Awesome Records label. This was the last album by Dax released on the Awesome label before signing with Sire. The album was re-released in 1993 on the Biter of Thorpe label (BOT131-04CD) and distributed through World Serpent Distribution.
Kyle Bobby Dunn is a Canadian composer, arranger, and live performer of modern compositional and guitar based drone music. He has performed in live and exclusive outdoor settings, including Banff National Park, since 2000 and has released music on various international recording labels.
James Ferraro is an American experimental musician, producer, composer and contemporary artist. He has been credited as a pioneer of the 21st century genres hypnagogic pop and vaporwave, with his work exploring themes related to hyperreality and consumer culture. His music has drawn on diverse styles such as 1980s electronic music, easy listening, drone, lo-fi, sound collage, and R&B.
Pelt is a drone music group formed in Richmond, Virginia in 1993.
Burning Star Core is the experimental music project of violinist C. Spencer Yeh. Originally conceived 1993 in Cincinnati, the project is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Composing music that's driven by his violin, Yeh's Burning Star Core project is known for its unique blend of musique concrète, ambient, drone, and psychedelic music. His albums A Brighter Summer Day (2002), Blood Lightning 2007 (2007), Operator Dead... Post Abandoned (2007) and Challenger (2008) received favorable write-ups from critics.
Beequeen is an experimental rock group formed in 1988 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Initially a duo of Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar, they were joined in 2007 by Olga Wallis, also on vocals and keyboards. They have released over 20 albums on different labels around the world.
Fade is the twenty-ninth studio album by Japanese experimental band Boris, released on 2 December 2022 under the band's label Fangs Anal Satan. It is their third studio album to be released in 2022, and it appeared with no prior announcement. Unlike some of the band's other recent releases, Fade explores drone metal sounds and is mostly instrumental. “prologue sansaro” was the first song from the album to be promoted with a music video.
