Physical CDs available at droneroomswc.bandcamp.com 12/5/2020!

I first heard droneroom at the Springwater Supper Club in Nashville, TN. Supper Club is a bit of a misnomer: Springwater is easily the worst venue in town. A dive bar like any other where the smell of stale cigarettes hangs in the air and cheap, spilled beer tattoos the floor. It is a wretched place. The only bright side it ever had was that from time to time you could stop in to catch a really different kind of show with really different kind of bands. The bands that couldn't get gigs anywhere else at the actual clubs and nice venues. A band like droneroom.

This particular evening was a night of noise showcasing 4 acts and their take on the avant and then some. The opening act was yelling into and throwing beer cans on an instrument he had made at home; another act ran a trumpet through various effect pedals displaying any number of de-tunes; and yet another act, playing their first show ever, made everything up on the spot. Out of the feedback loops and bent notes reverberating off the cement walls was a 30 minute spot of total bliss: droneroom.

Blake Edward Conley, the sole member of droneroom, played one song entitle "Piss Poor" and in that 30 minutes, he created a meditative space in which one could drift away. I will never forget sitting at a table, doing my best not to rest my head in some unknown goop, shutting my eyes and sort of drifting off into the track. Conley created a humongous atmosphere with only himself, a few guitar loops, and a bit of fuzz. Part psychedelic, part noise, part ambient, the track could take you places if you wanted it to.

And now, some four years or so later, Conley does the same thing, but with much greater focus on Jesus Year. Jesus Year's foundation is built on what Conley achieved with "Piss Poor", however, the arrangements of the song are stronger, the sounds more mellifluous: no sound is too soft nor too abrasive, everything sits evenly in the mix to create a sublime aural blanket to fold yourself into.

The album's title is referential to Conley's 33rd year of life. Jesus Year ruminates on a life lived that is gone and can't be had again, an ambiguous present looking for something tangible and a future that is wide open and ready to be molded into something entirely different and new. Something that isn't anything like what came before. Jesus Year represents the death of droneroom and Conley alike only to give way to a rebirth expressed in new sounds and new ideas.

The opener "I Used To Sleep To Dream (But Now I Just Dream Of Sleep)" picks up right where "Piss Poor" (originally released on Sweet Sounds Records as SSR007) left off. The soaring fuzz leads dipping in and out of the mix while the crystal clear harmonics sound off like angelic bells repeating a mantra. "Ladybird" may very well be Conley's most beautiful track. Stripping away a lot of the feedback and noise, Conley creates a wonderful sound poem to a lover. The tracks radiates with the majesty of a bird moving on the breeze freely.

Conley enlists the help of the uber-talented Nashville based drummer, Jane Boxall, on "Until The Water Takes You". While Conley's guitar loops create the bed of the track (it does have an "I just woke up" sort of feel to it), it is Boxall's marimba that shines in this track. Her touch is light, but very intentional; the marimba allows the track to bounce and plays a great counter to Conley's arpeggiated guitar. "I Think I Know You..." takes us to a more traditional sound for droneroom: angular and distorted guitar, barely understandable vocals swirling all over, and that little touch of claustrophobia. While the track is quite moody, Conley seems to be reaching out to say "Don't allow the darkness to win". Given that the track ends with the multiple vocal loops, before some ring modulated goodness, seem to amplify the effect of the last call to someone before they slip away for good.

Fitting that "Dancing Plastic Flowers" closes the program. It's multiple noises (often sounding like the sirens of an ambulance), the way the loops clash, and the final outro of what sounds like 8-bit goodies stolen from Willy Wonka gives the track a feeling of being lost and floating. Conley does a masterful job at mixing the pointed with the more refined. Sam Scholten, the album's producer, deserves a great amount of credit as well for assisting Conley in creating a sound collage with laser focus that is analogous to all of life's beauties and horrors. Each track flows into the other without jarring the listener away from and out of that safe space.

"I hope the darkness never controls you" is the pervading message on this album. Embrace and accept the jagged edges of life and adorn them with all the beauty you find.

-Ira Kinder, Tangiers, Morocco, July 2017

This is a fantastic album to chill to, and one worth your time, the perfect amount of drone, as the old Eno adage goes, keep you interested, but never overwhelm you.

www.never-nervous.com/2018/06/07/review-droneroom-jesus-year/