Drew McDowell - Third Helix (amber) - VINYL LP

For this third on Dais, Drew McDowall reaches into concept, ritual, and immersion, in an exercise of unravelling the DNA of hallucination. The Third Helix is McDowall's product of deconstructive exploration, twisting the fibers of being into new structure, shape, pattern, and pulse, without reconstituting it's inscribed template.The result is a true Inchthird act,Inch in McDowall's career, that has seen him peregrinate from the late-'70s art-punk of the trio Poems to his work with Psychic TV and Coil throughout the '80s and '90s, into his current home of New York City, where he has composed with CSD, Compound Eye, as well his solo work. That triangulation is central to The Third Helix, as it begins with his dive into the existence of a sensory toolkit unique to McDowall before twisting faculties and reconfiguring consciousness by honoring inherent power, cognizant of memory yet agnostic of context.Featuring eight new tracks of McDowall's dark, experimental electronics, including the opener InchRhizomeInch, The Third Helix is a churning descent into emotion, provoking thought and reflection while carving out haunting space only to fill it with baffling and wondrous structures of layered sound.

For this third on Dais, Drew McDowall reaches into concept, ritual, and immersion, in an exercise of unravelling the DNA of hallucination. The Third Helix is McDowall's product of deconstructive exploration, twisting the fibers of being into new structure, shape, pattern, and pulse, without reconstituting it's inscribed template.The result is a true Inchthird act,Inch in McDowall's career, that has seen him peregrinate from the late-'70s art-punk of the trio Poems to his work with Psychic TV and Coil throughout the '80s and '90s, into his current home of New York City, where he has composed with CSD, Compound Eye, as well his solo work. That triangulation is central to The Third Helix, as it begins with his dive into the existence of a sensory toolkit unique to McDowall before twisting faculties and reconfiguring consciousness by honoring inherent power, cognizant of memory yet agnostic of context.Featuring eight new tracks of McDowall's dark, experimental electronics, including the opener InchRhizomeInch, The Third Helix is a churning descent into emotion, provoking thought and reflection while carving out haunting space only to fill it with baffling and wondrous structures of layered sound.

Veteran NYC based Scottish electronic musician Drew McDowall's latest work is his loftiest, most liturgical, and least industrial outing to date - and potentially the apex of his recent discography. Named after an ancient Greek word for votive offering, Agalma exudes a hooded, devotional aura, creaking and keeling under vast rafters of stone, stained glass, and shredded wires. It's a music of majesty and mystery but also modernity, McDowall's refined modular system shape-shifting strings, piano, pipe organ, and choral masses into disorienting synthetic mirages of the sacred. He cites the intersection of Inchjoy, terror, and the elegiacInch as a centering inspiration - or, phrased more bluntly, Inchthat 'what the F**k is going on' feeling.InchAs a career collaborator himself, with stints in Coil, Psychic TV, and countless other shorter-lived partnerships, it's telling that McDowall chose this project to gather such an impressive spectrum of peers. Italian synthesist Caterina Barbieri, American drone organist Kali Malone, prolific multi-instrumentalist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, operatic Humanbeast vocalist Maralie Armstrong-Rial, Saudi producer MSYLMA, and warped futurist beat-makers Bashar Suleiman and Elvin Brandhi cameo across the album's 42 minutes, contouring McDowall's nuanced negative spaces with shudders, shadows, and shivering flickers of serenity. Each of them shines in their spotlight, elevating these elusive alchemical states into surreal revelations of texture and transcendence.McDowall's original working title for the record is revealing Ritual Music. He speaks of his creative practice in ceremonial terms, negating binaries by seeking the middle path to a numinous equilibrium that erases the distinction between the inner and outer worlds. These compositions feel similarly processional and intuitive, at the crossroads of holiness and hallucination, the sacr