Announced shortly after news of Tim Lewis’s return as Thighpaulsandra, another former Coil member Drew McDowall has detailed his first solo album, Collapse. The Scottish post-punk/industrial journeyman’s career has been devoted to exploring the dark confines of electronic music, using analogue synthesis as a common ground for drone-based compositions, industrial collages, and post-punk to coalesce. McDowall’s solo debut offers precisely that, recruiting Hiro Kone’s Nicky Mao to provide cut-ups and digital samples to his droning magma. The album’s first cut, “Hypnotic Congress,” is the best proof of that: featuring repetitive, ominous-sounding textures that throw back to “Warm Leatherette” or Richard H. Kirk’s work, but would not be out of place in Blackest Ever Black’s catalogue.
Born in Glasgow when it was one of the most violent cities in the world, McDowall was a gang member in his teens, until he found a way out of juvenile delinquency in punk rock. Around 1978, he formed The Poems alongside his wife Rose McDowall (who would later gain notoriety with the dream-bubblegum pop act Strawberry Switchblade). In the 80s, McDowall moved to London, becoming a member of the industrial/experimental circle of Throbbing Gristle offshoots Psychic TV and Coil. Although he played as a live musician with both bands, McDowall went on to become a full-fledged member of Coil in the 90s, taking part in over a dozen albums, including Astral Disaster, Musick to play in the dark Vol. 1, and Time Machines, where McDowall’s signature modular synth drones become the most apparent. Currently based in New York, McDowall very rarely performs live, though in recent years he has released several remixes and a string of collaborative albums with Psychic Ills’ Tres Warren under the Compound Eye banner.
Collapse is out of September 25 via Dais Records.
Collapse tracklisting:
01. The Chimeric Mesh Withdraws (Parts 1-3)
02. Hypnotic Congress
03. Through Is Out
04. Convulse
05. Each Surface of Night
[Photo: Gillian Leigh Bowling]
• Dais Records: http://www.daisrecords.com