Opn_Drn is an experiment by Bughouse whereby anyone present is invited to contribute a single tone to a collective drone using any instrument, including voice. Effects and variation on individual notes can be used within the context of a continuous, unbroken sound.

This attempt to reconfigure the performer/audience dynamic is not an evolution but a return, and a re-emergence of ‘primitive’ culture; one in which music/art/theatre are produced communally and the boundary between spectator and artist is blurred and porous. Unlike ‘primitive’ societies though, our language and myths are confused and fragmented; common ground appears only momentarily if at all. In this context collective expression is impossible unless language (musical or other ) is stripped of its complexity, to almost nothing: a void or an absence. A drone can function as a kind of audio primordial-soup in which patterns can be discovered collectively, and new forms of communication can potentially evolve, or failing that, at least the absence of the possibility of communicating can perhaps be expressed.

Bughouse is a secret world, a group of friends ( the friends of good chance) invisible to most, travelling in time and through the channels of analogue and digital audio and visual technology. These friends of good chance are barely a group of artists except when they decide to present themselves as such, and then only with some reservations.

Participate in Opn_Drn at THE PROPHETIC SOUND