Spanish artist Susana López (now also known as superhero “Susan Drone”) fires earthenware drones, nubbly and pebbly to the touch; they have heft and a pleasing tactility. Her latest collection, Stupor Mundi, is christened in honor of early inspiration Asmus Tietchens, and consists of four tracks, each longer than the one that precedes it. The first two were wrought from field recordings made in locations including “the stone circle of Bryn Cader Faner [in Wales], in the groundwater of the Danish canals and in the wind farms of La Rioja.” The last two were dreamed up digitally.
For López, the drone is “transformed nature and its forms” and a desire to manifest the unseen. Each of her creations has its own very distinctive colorway and López’ eye for detail in the maelstrom is incisive. “Yokai” is unfamiliar and forbidding, the pulmonary pulse of a red giant as it consumes itself from within. The title track churns the air rhythmically (those wind turbines?) high above a flattened terrain. Through “Valhalla II,” distant voices are in thrall to endless descent. Finally, “Drones to Zazeela” – surely a nod to drone godmother Marian Zazeela of Theatre of Eternal Music fame – is a half-hour of pure buzzy brain massage.
Stephen Fruitman
Avant Music News 