“Isolation/Collaboration,” the New London Drone Orchestra’s excellent debut album, is the result of adaptation and resilience. The group’s debut was supposed to be recorded in March 2020, right when the pandemic started to get really bad in the U.S. So the collective decided to do something different: the NLDO members recorded solo tracks at home, around a common tonal center, which were then shared among the members and mixed together. The resulting six-track album is beautiful and haunting.
It’s surprising that these tracks were recorded in such a piecemeal fashion, because the results sound so vivid, like the NLDO members are sitting next to each other, taking cues from each other, and generally weaving these sonic lines together by way of a longtime collaborative understanding. It’s a credit to the group that the tracks feel so aesthetically consistent and vibrant.
“Isolation/Collaboration” seems born of abandoned spaces: a shuttered electrical substation full of idle transformers; the ruins of a lumber mill’s pier, intermittent pilings jutting up proud from the water; an old rock quarry cradling a blue-green crater lake. There are artifacts and decay all through the record. Some of the tracks on “Isolation/Collaboration” bring to mind Autechre’s rumbling/creaking tracks, or some of Jim O’Rourke’s more aggressive Steamroom releases, or even Floating Points’s more drawn-out and delicate drones. There’s a lot to absorb and appreciate with this record; I’ve been listening to it for the past few months and every time I come back to it, I notice something new.