Drone Download Project

Look, let me make one thing clear from the outset: I am pretty much clueless when it comes to music. I have something of a feel for "moldy oldies" rock music from, oh, the mid 60s to the early to mid 80s. Any other kind of music, I may listen, I may vaguely enjoy, but I just don't get it. In fact, country music, I just don't get, period.

When it comes to my reactions to, ummmm, noise, I'm rather strange. Among other things, I have always been strangely moved by the noise of a vacuum cleaner motor running. The noise of a vacuum cleaner has an effect on me, something like the effect music may have on you. Well, no, not exactly like music; more like a tingle up the spine, Jack Frost at the windowpane, wool blanket and mug of hot chocolate on a dark, cold, and desolate winter night. It feels almost like being in touch with some strange alternate dimension of reality.

Anyhow. A while back, I stumbled across an online radio station called Darkdrone Radio, on Live365. And it sounded to me, and affected me, much like the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Music only a few steps above sheer noise. Music that is almost all background, and hardly any foreground. I'm far too dense about music to know what kind of music this was, though I think the description at Live365 included reference to something like "drone music" or "ambient music." Or whatever.

Darkdrone Radio has since joined the ever-growing list of stations at Live365 for which you now have to pay a subscription fee if you want to listen. So. I searched around, and ran across another site which carries tons of this kind of music. For free. Plus also CDs for sale.

Dark Duck Records: "Established in 1988, Dark Duck Records is an independent record label featuring ambient, deep chill, minimal techno, glitch, dark ambience, minimalism, environmental ambient, experimental electronica, click, and other 'electronic' music." Okay, I'll take their word for it, I freely admit I have no idea what they're talking about.

But their music is cool. Like the sound of a vacuum cleaner, or so it seems to me. And if you check out their Drone Download Project, you will find, like I say, drone music, or ambient music, or whatever, available for download. For free. They don't have limitless resources, they can't keep hosting it all forever, but the project has been running for almost four years, and the past year or so of music is still available for download, free.

If you want to get the droning, buzzing, whanging, wowing and mumming music that was posted earlier on, you can order it from Dark Duck Records on CD. With never-before-posted bonus tracks thrown in for free. I ordered the first three years of the Drone Download Project. A total of 24 hours of music. In fact, when it arrived I found they'd even thrown in an extra CD for free.

Like I say, I call it "vacuum cleaner music." Like the noise of a vacuum cleaner motor running. But then, I'm rather strange.