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A review by patrickwreed
Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion by Harry Sword
3.0
A fascinating work in places, but let down by some stylistic or editorial choices - for a book whose intro begins firmly in the stoner/doom/drone axis, and whose artwork and sales pitch seems to sit equally in that area, a scant chapter is dedicated to the likes of Earth, Sunn O))) and The Melvins, while Black Sabbath don't make an appearance until at least two thirds of the way through.
That's not to say that the prior chapters are inessential; points of Hawkwind, LaMonte Young, Krautrock, and the influence of Ravi Shankar and Indian ragas on western music are very well made and their significance convincingly argued, and with impressive depth.
What lets the book down is a tendency towards Nick Kent-esque glorification of the drug-addled experience of some of this music (admittedly, not to be overlooked when discussing rave music or Sleep, but it grates after a while), and some repetition of metaphor and analogy that should have been picked up. The same comparison being made multiple times in a single chapter is off-putting. There also some tangents which, while entertaining, feel like the writer is going off-piste in order to talk about some personal favourite artists far more than ensuring that he's sticking to the topic of drone - it's hard to justify how Neu!'s "Hallogallo" or the music of Andrew Weatherall could be considered drone, no matter how brilliant it is, and in places it seems that drone, minimalism and repetition are conflated, while a section on hauntology seems to exist purely because it's trendy, rather than because it's relevant.
If you're fascinated by the drone/doom genre specifically, this book may seem a disappointment, but if you have a more broader interest in the making of music generally, and particularly in the fringes of popular music - from Alice Coltrane to Neurosis by way of John Cale - I would thoroughly recommend this, and make sure you've got a notebook or a Spotify account handy as many songs and artists are written about in such a way as to make you want to put the book down and stick their record on immediately.
That's not to say that the prior chapters are inessential; points of Hawkwind, LaMonte Young, Krautrock, and the influence of Ravi Shankar and Indian ragas on western music are very well made and their significance convincingly argued, and with impressive depth.
What lets the book down is a tendency towards Nick Kent-esque glorification of the drug-addled experience of some of this music (admittedly, not to be overlooked when discussing rave music or Sleep, but it grates after a while), and some repetition of metaphor and analogy that should have been picked up. The same comparison being made multiple times in a single chapter is off-putting. There also some tangents which, while entertaining, feel like the writer is going off-piste in order to talk about some personal favourite artists far more than ensuring that he's sticking to the topic of drone - it's hard to justify how Neu!'s "Hallogallo" or the music of Andrew Weatherall could be considered drone, no matter how brilliant it is, and in places it seems that drone, minimalism and repetition are conflated, while a section on hauntology seems to exist purely because it's trendy, rather than because it's relevant.
If you're fascinated by the drone/doom genre specifically, this book may seem a disappointment, but if you have a more broader interest in the making of music generally, and particularly in the fringes of popular music - from Alice Coltrane to Neurosis by way of John Cale - I would thoroughly recommend this, and make sure you've got a notebook or a Spotify account handy as many songs and artists are written about in such a way as to make you want to put the book down and stick their record on immediately.