Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

DAIS221LP

Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2024-05-31

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

683950557208

Total Cap

Black LP

DAIS221LPC1

Clear Red

Extended format: Yes

683950557246

9999

Red LP

Artist

Drew McDowall

Genre GB

Experimental / Avant-Garde / Industrial / Noise

Label GB

Dais

Drew McDowall, born on January 28th, 1961 in Paisley, Scotland, is a renowned artist known for his work with Coil and as a solo artist under the name Screwtape. He has also been a member of Compound Eye and Captain Sons & Daughters. Drew co-created The Poems in the late 1970s and was part of Psychic TV in the 1980s. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY and is actively involved in the modular electronic world.

Throughout his career, Drew McDowall has made significant contributions to the music industry. His collaboration with Coil led him to become an official member of the band in 1995. In addition to his work with various groups, he also worked as tour manager for The Shamen.

Beyond his musical achievements, Drew is a proud father to Keri from his previous marriage to Rose McDowall of Strawberry Switchblade fame. With a strong presence within the modular electronic scene and residing in Brooklyn, NY, Drew continues to make waves as an influential figure within the industry.

Dais Records is an independent American record label founded by Gibby Miller and Ryan Martin in 2007. Based in Los Angeles, California and New York, New York, Dais Records operates as a genre-agnostic label with a focus on experimental and avant-garde music. The label represents both emerging and established active artists while also curating rare and out of print material for reissue projects. Dais Records exclusively distributes its releases through Secretly Distribution.

Scottish experimental/electronic musician Drew McDowall’s lifelong interest
in an elegiac solo bagpipe style called pibroch (ceòl mòr in Gaelic) has been
an inspiration for much of his previous work (including Coil’s legendary Time
Machines). This form, often traditionally used for laments and for tributes to
the dead, fuses modal drones with flickering dissonance and plaintive melody
evoking an ancient, solemn mood.

His latest work, A Thread, Silvered and Trembling, both incorporates and
transforms these elements via exploratory electronic processing, weaving an
electro-acoustic tapestry of strings, shudders, voids, and voices, alternately
disembodied and displaced. Co-produced with engineer Randall Dunn at
Circular Ruin Studios in Brooklyn, the collection’s four pieces capture
McDowall at his most elevated and elusive, in thrall to "the ineffable – that
which refuses to be spoken."

McDowall’s palette here is unusually eclectic, sourced from a dynamic
orchestral ensemble arranged by Brent Arnold and comprised of cello, viola,
violin, harp (Marilu Donovan of Leya), and french horn. Ebbing between
shrouded electronics and enigmatic, sometimes spectralist orchestration, the
album moves with a seething, simmering energy, surging into elegant, uneasy
crescendos. The first two pieces are inspired by a liberatory hijacking and
inversion of a grim biblical story (and by a cryptic and strange UK simple
syrup branding). Opener "Out of Strength Comes Sweetness" shivers with
short echo and resonant pads, before shifting into the album’s centerpiece:
the 14-minute saga "And Lions Will Sing with Joy." A murmuring electrical
storm of keening strings and disorienting drones gradually grows darker and
denser, until suddenly there’s a crack in the clouds, revealing mutated choral
voices and sparkling harp. McDowall describes the track as "an incantation to
help usher in a break, and a new beginning."


The record’s latter half evokes a deep untamed animism shot through with
spiraling radiance. "In Wound and Water" sways with harp, plucked strings
and eerie cello undertows while lush layers of disorientated electronics hang
in the dusk. There is no resolution, only a faint gradient of fragile dissipation,
leading into the album’s harrowing and climactic closer, "A Dream of a
Cartographic Membrane Dissolves." Processed voices (credited on the liner
notes to "The Ghosts Who Refuse to Rest") contort, whisper, and gather as
the rest of the ensemble sharpens, poising to strike. Then it does – grand,
tragic stabs of strings and horns lashing the sky, storming heaven by force.


The fallout is poetic and inevitable, raining embers into a dark sea. But the
journey and catharsis of A Thread linger long after it goes silent. Like so much
of McDowall’s multifaceted catalog, this is music of immanence and alchemy,
attuned equally to the sacred and the profane, to the tile and the mosaic.


For fans of Kali Malone, Coil (late 90s), Laurel Halo, Actress, Ryuichi
Sakamoto and alva noto, Tim Hecker, Hiro Kone, Caterina Barbieri, LEYA


A Thread, Silvered and Trembling

Music GB

Discover A Thread, Silvered and Trembling by Drew McDowall on Dais. Scottish musician blends pibroch with electronic processing in an ethereal album.