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Drone, Noise & Experimental

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Bristol's Drone/noise Scene

Bristol’s drone and noise rock scenes are some of the most awesome musical niches found in this city. Small packed-out gigs, captivated crowds and performers pushing the boundaries between music, white noise and sound art. While international names like Tim Hecker and the Haxan Cloak have made appearances in Bristol, it’s local label Howling Owl Records and promoters Cacophonous Sarcophagus who are leading the way here. Keep your eyes peeled for gigs at the Arnolfini gallery, The Cube cinema, The Exchange and small events spaces like the Scout Hut and Centre Space.

Intimate Drone/noise music in Bristol
The Bristol drone/noise scene, it’s not just the Bristol Hum like you’d think! Bristol drone and noise gigs can be some of the most intimate around, the crowd all huddled in silence in one of Bristol prestigious venues (like the newly rebranded Bristol Beacon). Although lacking big local names to rival international drone artists like William Basinski or Tim Hecker, there’s been a recent increase in ambient gigs, nights like Dark Alchemy and Lust Pattern have taken the beat out of music but still made it droney and noisey, and just very Bristol.

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Our recent drone/noise recommendations

Leading vocal experimentalist joins forces with fearless DIY percussionist in a boundless collaboration where politics, deep listening and raw physicality collide. Using piano, voice, gong and tap dance, their performance is as precise as it is playful. Their enchanting show at St George’s last year still echoes in our minds... Free improvisation across borders.

Medieval chamber-prog meets indie-metal in a bizzaro mashup of seriously accomplished modern sludge liturgies. Like Dirty Projectors covering Hildegard von Bingen in an Evil Dead 3 scenario; Extra Life have stumbled upon something unclassifiable and out of time, that somehow makes complete sense. A total revelation FFO: Zs, Horse Lords, Liturgy, These New Puritans, Kayo Dot, Lingua Ignota. Aggressive math rock, dark dramatic pop, modern classical, and ancient liturgical music.

Sell out warning! Trad-drone-metal mesmerism from the Lankum fold! One Leg One Eye are to the uilleann pipes what Sunn O))) are to guitars - rewriting the history of the instrument in expansive, infinite landscapes of heaviness. Nightmares await FFO: Hilary Woods, Swans, Quade, Keeley Forsyth, Phurpa. Drone folk & noise experiments

Enter the trance state that only kraut-assisted heavy psych and ritualised doom can bring. Bonnacons of Doom wrestle with a cvlt-like sound: epic, shamanic, electric, and ancient. Hands down one of the best bands on Rocket Recs (and we do NOT say that lightly). Potentially life-changing FFO: Gnod, Föllakzoid, Messa, Codex Serafini, Gang Gang Dance. ILM presents: Bonnacons of Doom

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What our editors say

“Brown's solo work is heavily electronica-based utilising analogue synths alongside tape machines, piano, strings and walls of ambient atmospherics. His work focuses on the analogue side of capturing and creating sound in the real world with physical hardware.”
From: James Adrian Brown & Sulk Rooms

“The highly atmospheric, spacey duo Naissance with the poised beauty of trumpeter Laura Jurd, one of the new global starts of the UK jazz scene. Music exploring Colour, Space and Silence. Music between jazz, contemporary classical, ambient and minimalism. Music of Mindfulness..”
From: Naissance Plus, featuring Laura Jurd

“Bristol's much-cherished ambassadors of “doomer sad-boy, ambient dub, folk, experimental post-rock” join forces with AD93 labelmate Jasmine Wood (USA). Combining analog instruments with electronic manipulation, merging indie, shoegaze, electronic, experimental and modern classical.”
From: Quade + Jasmine Wood + guests

“Where do we go from here? With WRNTDP’s sound making graceful stretches outwards into folky minimalism, shimmering IDM and languid ambient there is no way to tell for sure, but it’s a guarantee that wherever it may go, Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan’s Music is perfect for soundtracking the building of a new world, or the ending of an old one.”
From: Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan

“Loula Yorke is a UK-based composer, sound artist and modular synthesist. Though she debuted with the YSMYSMYSM album back in 2019, she’s become increasingly prolific over the years, and in 2024 alone dropped the hypnotically looping Volta album on Truxalis, completed a long-form ambient excursion called speak, thou vast and venerable head for quiet details and issued a new vinyl version of her A Man On a Galloping Horse Wouldn’t See It LP via Castles in Space.”
From: Brighde Chaimbeul + Loula Yorke