Bands/Albums/Songs Without Drums

clockwork green · July 12, 2012, 03:09:36 AM

My current frustration with drummers has got me wanting to listen to stuff without drummers...not folksy singer-songwriter stuff but Earth, Sunn, even Brian Eno's ambient work. So, what are your non-folk drumless works that are worthy of listening to?

franksnbeans · July 12, 2012, 04:16:41 AM

Drummers are the coolest!

But how about some drum machine stuff like Godflesh or heavier stuff like Coprophiliac. Get a drum machine.

Jake · July 12, 2012, 10:52:27 AM

Good topic. I have a handful of these I can share.

Eluvium – Talk Amongst the Trees: My iTunes playcount says 236, which to me says I let this play in the background all the time. I always have this on when I'm flying somewhere.

Randall of Nazareth – S/T: Randall Huth from Pearls & Brass

http://mp3sale.ru/release/randall_of_nazareth/129896

Zomes – S/T – Guitar player from Lungfish (one of my fav alltime bands). Some songs have percussion, but definitely not drums.

http://hypem.com/track/1696x/Zomes+-+Cosmovital+Force

Crone – Endless Midnight: Bass player from ISIS. Very Brian Eno-ish.

http://www.noisecreep.com/2011/07/18/crone-what-you-dream-of-song/

Brain Eno – Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks: Most people are pretty familiar with this one, but figured I'd slap in in here just in case someone hadn't.

Fripp & Eno – Evening Star: See above.

Furry Lewis – "Heavier" than anything I have heard to this day.

I,Galactus · July 12, 2012, 10:59:57 AM

A heavy drone group I've really been digging of late is CHORD. Featuring members of Pelican and an extremely theory-based approach to drone music, both of which are right up my alley.

http://chordgroup.bandcamp.com/

xayk · July 12, 2012, 03:56:53 PM

Zomes rule.

How's about Jenks Miller's "Approaching the Invisible Mountain", which has a sparse blues/spaghetti western vibe that I highly enjoy. And on the other end of the spectrum, Mick Barr's Ocrilim project is entirely sans-drums.

The Shocker · July 12, 2012, 04:11:16 PM

Sam Gopal doesn't really have drums*, but it does have Lemmy!

* It may have bongos - haven't listened to it in a long time.

clockwork green · July 12, 2012, 05:18:07 PM

Some great stuff so far. I'm just at a point where I'm tired of coming up with stuff I like on the guitar and then saying "damn, I'm drummerless so I guess I'll have to wait to use it when I find another one".

OUTLANDAH · July 12, 2012, 06:15:47 PM

clockwork green · July 13, 2012, 12:57:34 AM

I'll add one to my own thread that I forgot about...Nadja.

grimniggzy · July 13, 2012, 03:19:37 PM

drum machines okay or nah?

clockwork green · July 13, 2012, 03:31:49 PM

I have no interest in ever playing with a drum machine. Besides for this thread, I'd like to find things that went beyond the drum paradigm.

Jake · July 14, 2012, 09:03:03 PM

One more thing that I happen to really enjoy is that last Neil Young thing call Le Noise. There's some very cool videos online showing how they recorded that. I geek out hard on those behind the scenes type dealies.

clockwork green · July 14, 2012, 10:02:31 PM

Le Noise was good not in that it was amazing musically, it was fine but it was something different and cool which easy for someone like Neil Young. Kudos to Daniel Lanois for setting that up.

Harm · July 15, 2012, 04:59:44 AM

Quote from: clockwork green on July 12, 2012, 05:18:07 PM
Some great stuff so far. I'm just at a point where I'm tired of coming up with stuff I like on the guitar and then saying "damn, I'm drummerless so I guess I'll have to wait to use it when I find another one".

Why don't you learn how to play the drums yourself? In that case you can at least record your songs while waiting for a drummer to perform live. But why wait? When played right, even the most basic drum can work and i cannot imagine that somebody who can play in a band cannot learn that. I don't want to sound like an asshole, but you make it seem as though you blame others for your own laziness.

doomborn · July 15, 2012, 08:03:20 AM

clockwork green · July 15, 2012, 12:33:44 PM

I thought this whole thread was an acknowledgment that I'm blaming others for me not getting more things finished. I'm a little hesitant to add drums or even bass over the "band" material I've written. I'm a compartmentalizer and I worry that once I start completing these songs, even if just treated as demos I'll be a bit too married to them. I know that dictatorships often work well in bands but I'm not going to be in a band like that let alone be that person. A reasonable and logical person wouldn't have that issue their drum parts but I would since everything else would interact with them. If I had plans to release my one man band then I would never look to perform it live with other "hired" musicians.

I've been wanting to do more textural music for awhile and I think I have a few ideas to not only make it really interesting to me but maybe even unique enough that others might find it worthy of a listen. I'm tired of feeling that you can only make real music if you have drums, bass, guitar and vocals do I wanted to get some outside inspiration from the collective music knowledge here of just a small section (bands that lack drums) that break that paradigm.

Jake · July 25, 2012, 12:50:26 PM

Drummers have the GHEY AYDZ.

Here's some more ambient/wallpaper stuff to check out. Just fetched it and am really enjoying it thus far.

http://igiveyoumusicyougivemesex.blogspot.com/2012/07/carbon-based-lifeforms-23-2011.html

hisheroisjon · July 25, 2012, 01:30:58 PM

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Nurse With Wound yet. Brighter Death Now, Coil, Pyramids, This Mortal Coil are all good as well.