When I call Melissa Auf der Maur on the eve of 24-HOUR DRONE, her only child is preparing for battle. “I’m delivering my daughter to be part of a reenactment of the Greek Olympic Games,” she explains. “I’m watching hundreds of children in grade five with white tunics congregate on a field, waiting for the opening torch ceremony.” The next day, she’ll witness the start of a ritual performance of her own design.
At noon, as early entrants to her day-long music festival mill about, laying out yoga mats and sleeping bags to stake out space on the floor of Basilica Hudson’s cavernous warehouse, New York City’s premiere Balian gamelan group Dharma Swara will strike a gong, kicking off an event that’s exactly what it sounds like: 24 hours of unbroken sound.
Read Next: New Music Friday: Stream albums from Danny Brown & JPEGMAFIA, Lana Del Rey, and more Born in the early ’70s, Auf der Maur views her own life in roughly 10-year epochs.
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, she was an avid experimentalist, living for a time with members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor in her native Montréal.
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