The music of IOSIS (musician, composer and sound designer Alex Bissen) is built upon the foundational forms and textures found in drone, noise, and ambient composition, alongside more traditional compositional structures and considerations, employing instrumentation ranging from a vintage Roland Juno 6 to modern Eurorack modular systems to a contact-microphone-enabled Tibetan singing bowl. IOSIS is the recipient of a 2024 McKnight Composer Fellowship and a 2018 ACF Minnesota Emerging Composer Award.
Hello Friends! My name is Alex Bissen, I am a 2024 McKnight Composer Fellow, and I am based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota where I compose, perform, and produce under the name IOSIS. I also am a creative partner with Drone Not Drones. Drone Not Drones is an annual 28-hour event that is a benefit for Doctors Without Borders; it’s part benefit concert, part art project, and part community event. The Drone takes place every year at The Cedar Cultural Center here in Minneapolis in the dead of winter, and Drone Not Drones X (yes, this year’s will be the 10th Drone!) will be occurring this year January 24 and 25. Every year more than 50 acts will rotate on and off the stage to create a single, uninterrupted 28-hour drone to protest the extrajudicial and immoral American drone program, and to raise money for victims of the United States military-industrial complex.
I am sharing this playlist with you as an opportunity to discuss Drone Not Drones and to celebrate the community of countless musicians who have contributed to 10 years(!) of annual 28-hour long Drone performances who have come from locally and afar, and who have brought their own communities with them into our community here. I’m also sharing a few of the artists who have not (yet?) performed the Drone but who have been very influential and inspiring in my artistic practice as a musician. Thank you for your time and your attention in enjoying this music that I’m sharing, and thank you to American Composers Forum and I CARE IF YOU LISTEN for this opportunity to share time together. SEE YOU AT THE DRONE!
“A Warm Place,” by Trent Reznor, Performed by Nine Inch Nails
This song is where so much of who I am as a musician and an artist began. Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral is an album of extremes; the lyrical and thematic content, the unique and abrasive textural production, and the incredible dynamic range from song to song made my first listen a very engrossing, disorienting, and formative experience. “A Warm Place” is a lull of respite surrounded by an absolute storm on both sides, a moment to catch your breath and to also wonder what could possibly await you on the other side.
I did not have words for what I was hearing; none of my friends or peers in my small town knew what ambient music or drone music was, or even that music like this could exist without adhering to more traditional rock or pop song structures — outside of perhaps classical music, but this most certainly was not classical music!
“Do You Know How to Waltz?” by Alan Sparhawk and Mimi J. Parker, Performed by Low (Live at Rock the Garden 2013)
As legend has it, Drone Not Drones founder Luke Heiken was listening to some drone music when the idea of making a bumper sticker struck him and “Drone Not Drone” popped into his head. Later that same night Luke saw a tweet from Alan Sparhawk (of Low) denouncing the concept of military drones as the extent of Obama’s bloody and brutal drone “warfare” campaign was just beginning to come to light.
Luke responded with an image of the “Drone Not Drones” sticker, and Sparhawk would respond by capping this stunning Rock The Garden performance of Do You Know How to Waltz by walking up to the mic and firmly proclaiming “Drone, Not Drones” before walking off the stage.
Improvisation #2 by Paul Metzger
My first exposure to Paul Metzger and his music was at the very first Drone Not Drones. Paul’s incredibly unique custom 21 string banjo and his use of extensive extended technique was like nothing I’d ever seen, but it was his deft use of improvisation, dynamic tough and deep dedication to a personally unique musicianship in Paul’s artistry that has stuck with me.
“In the Plague Times,” by John Saint Pelvyn
Steve, aka John Saint Pelvyn, is another artist who’s music I was first introduced at the first Drone. Much like Metzger I was also rather confused with Steve’s performance and approach to his music, but unlike Metzger it would actually take me a few years and a few performances before his music “clicked.”
His is an artistry that is mesmerizing, confusing, and utterly fresh. He performs shoeless, pacing about the Drone stage as part caged animal and part contemplative monk, shifting between impromptu bouts of throat singing and extended guitar exploration, also displaying a deep dedication to a personally unique musicianship both in his composition and performance.
Amulet by IE
IE are a four-piece rock band out of Minneapolis who write music that might come from a universe wherein The Velvet Underground blew up instead of The Beatles. It is moody, smokey, sparse in it’s minimalism, and flowing over with vibes that transport to a place that is very distinctly their own.
Basta by Alessandro Cortini
The discovery of Alesandro Cortini’s Forse series was a pivot point in my life as an artist. I don’t think I’d yet heard somebody wring so much from a single instrument, and to deliver such a captivating and emotionally resonant body of work in the process. These songs are all single take performances done on the Buchla Music Easel, and the pieces represent a masterclass in exploring the intersection between timbre and emotion within musical composition.
This Life by Tim Hecker
Tim Hecker was one of the first “drone” artists that I discovered. What I found in his use of sound and the aesthetics he utilized in approaching composition was very critical in beginning to forge a personal towards becoming a composer myself. With his release of Konoyo, which opens with this track, Hecker upended what I thought I knew about him and presented yet another similarly inspiring and foundational lens through which to reassess and reforge my own work.
Desires Are Reminiscences by Now by Abul Mogard
Like so many other artists in this list, Abul Mogard prioritizes a compositional minimalism and simplicity and a rich textural complexity while delivering a deeply emotional listening experience. This song, to me, is a very clear distillation of who he is as an artist, and I think perhaps this song also has shaped my own composition and performance work more than anything else I’ve listened to in the last handful of years.
Joe Rainey X IOSIS set at Drone Not Drones 2024
Lastly, I am including the performance that pow-wow singer Joe Rainey and I did at last years Drone Not Drones. Joe and I shared about two paragraphs of thoughts and ideas prior to doing this improvised set together, with the core ideas we discussed being to try to leave lots of open space for one another, to listen to what one another are doing within that open space and to be generous in reacting to it, and to acknowledge and embrace any anger and frustration we might be feeling and to let it come out during the set. I think the results peak for themselves, and this is a performance that I am very proud of.
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