It’s 6am and I’m walking with an old friend. I don’t think magic is real until we ramble along the Hudson towards a sign that reads “NO WAKE ZONE” in bold red letters after staying up all night blanketed in droning sound. The sun shines fresh in the sky like an orange just peeled, full of all the zest of a day yet lived. We watch a couple of men leap into a small white boat and unmoor themselves from the dock in search of today’s daily catch; an otter paddles past us as we perch on the edge of a rock and dig our feet into the dewy grass. Somewhere in the distance I hear the drone still humming, an unbroken sound matching the simple rhythm of life.
This is the 24-Hour Drone.
~
In May, hundreds of drone lovers descend upon Basilica Hudson, a refurbished factory-music venue in Hudson, NY, to listen to 24 hours of unbroken sound. This year’s event took place from May 18-19 and featured a characteristic variety of sets: the vibrating beats of Alex Zhang Hungtai and the striking vocals of Nadah El-Shazly at 10pm, the wafting tones of Tyondai Braxton & Ben Vida at midnight, the splitting noise of Mirrored Fatality at 4am, the gentle pulses of Peepers at 7am. I spent approximately 17 hours at the event, soaking in as much of the music as I could without dozing off (I only fell asleep for about 20 minutes at 4am, and yes that was during the harsh noise set, and no I’m not really sure how it happened). But while the concept is certainly special, the event is worth cherishing for the people you meet there—the crew who drove up from North Carolina or down from Vermont, the Mother Teresa impersonator who baptizes you after day breaks. Time isn’t real in that cavernous space—all that matters is the people and the sounds we experience together.
I arrive at the drone in the early evening, just as dusk peppers the sky pink and Black Decelerant’s twinkling music emanates from the center of the room out into the courtyard where many of us are grabbing food. I get some “jazzy fries”—French fries topped with crumbled feta cheese and vegetables, doused in mild spice—and take a seat with my friends to catch up on life. A rogue travel mug occupies our picnic bench and we let it sit; later in the evening, once the sun has completely dimmed, its owner randomly sits next to us and squeals with delight when she realizes she’s found it. We talk about why we’re there and where we’re from, how we’ve been and where we’re going. The drone is omnipresent, swirling amongst our laughs and ornamenting our silences.
I’m done with my fries and I decide to head inside and catch some music. Sleeping bags are strewn around the room and people seem to be starting to settle in for the night shift. Push for Night & John Mueller are on stage making glimmering sounds that rise above the hum of conversation in the room; they fade seamlessly into Alex Zhang Hungtai’s pulsing techno rhythm, which offers a more upbeat answer to the question of drone. Much of the day’s performances aren’t drone in the usual sense, but I like the variety, and the idea that this event isn’t necessarily about genre—it’s about the feeling of watching sound and light change over time, of observing who we are when we walk in and who we’ve become when we leave.
As night sets in, things begin to feel eerie in the space. Some people sleep, others pace. I sit wrapped in a blanket against a wall watching the darkness of the world outside. Dripping’s set feels like a fever dream—I swear I could have made up the person in a lit-up fairy dress who slowly danced around the room. At night, nothing and everything is real. It is a time full of paradoxes, and so the drone follows: At 4am, the guttural noise of Mirrored Fatality shakes the room alive, slicing through the quietness of that hour with force.
Then, a twinkling, pale blue light starts to stream through Basilica’s massive arched windows as the gongs of Vocalnori blare through the space like a much more experimental alarm. Vocalnori, a project of composer Leo Chang, is an exploratory study of electrified Korean gongs and metal objects, connecting to his Korean heritage while embracing improvisatory freedom. Throughout his performance, it’s as if his gongs are in conversation with the spacious room’s tall walls; he plays with dynamics, letting one massive gong ring bleed into a shimmering quietude. Like the never-ending drone, his gongs are always in motion, following the flickering light as it grows with the sun’s rise.
Once 8am comes, I get to hear my personal favorite set of the morning (and 17 hours of music I saw). It’s Ghost Ensemble’s performance of Phill Niblock, whose rainbow clusters of overtones are unlike anything else. His music is dense yet diffuse, soft yet rough around the edges. The sun is fully awake by this point in the day, but Niblock’s drones feel like they could drown it out. My eyes well up a bit as I remember the last time I heard his music inside Roulette on the Winter Solstice. Niblock sat downstairs, surrounded by his music and three screens showing a film on loop; we didn’t know it then but it’d be the last time we’d breathe air together. Today, his music reverberates on through the walls of Basilica, a drone heard and remembered.
As hour 24 nears, I learn that we’re going to end with a primal scream birthed from the amplified noise of the day’s trash, collected by the kind soul who tended bar through the night. I say “I’m sooo ready,” and I really am. See, anyone who stays up all night knows that by noon, you’ve caught a third wind, maybe even a fourth. I’m excited to let myself get consumed by the pulse of blown-out static one more time and the set doesn’t disappoint. Electric grit shoots from speakers like lightning striking deep into the ground, taking root in the room and exploding far beyond it. I’m so immersed I don’t notice anything around me, I just hear the sound and its waves crashing down, down, down. And then it suddenly cuts out. I join a chorus of screams, shrieks from somewhere deep inside let go into the ether. The drone is never done, just evolved.
~
