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Drew McDowall

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Kali Malone & Drew McDowall, “Magnetism” (Ideologic Organ, 2025)

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This synth-centric debut collaboration between two longtime friends was recorded over the course of a single day in McDowell’s home studio back in 2022. Normally, a one-off recording session that has eluded release for three years would not set my heart a-flutter no matter who was involved, but Magnetism is the rare exception in which something truly unique and mesmerizing occurred and now the rest of us finally get to hear it. 

While both artists have each been involved in at least one canonical release over the course of their careers, it is fair to describe Malone and McDowall as stylistic wildcards, so this union could have taken any number of divergent directions. Happily, the one that it ultimately took favorably suggests a more condensed and sharp-edged update of McDowalls’ work with Coil on 1998’s iconic Time Machines.

Notably, there is virtually nothing about this album that suggests that it was made by humans, but apparently Malone steered the proceedings melodically while McDowall focused himself on applying his “signature timbral synthesis” to those melodies. That unusual division of roles goes a long way towards explaining why this album sounds like a single fully formed vision rather than two differing aesthetics woven together. 

It also partially explains how truly alien and visceral these five pieces turned out, as McDowall used Karplus-Strong synthesis, which is a physical modeling process in which filtered delay is used to simulate the sound of hammered or plucked strings. Those unnaturally gnarled and sharp textures are just one piece of the puzzle, however, as the duo also used just intonation to ensure that the melodies and harmonies were every bit as unfamiliar and otherworldly as their shapeshifting timbres. 

Obviously, just intonation tuning sounds quite alien and unique under just about any circumstances at all, but as any fan of Malone’s landmark The Sacrificial Code album can tell you, she is a bit of a genius when it comes to sculpting complex overtones and oscillations. And as one of those fans, I feel confident in stating that she has really outdone herself in that regard here. If The Sacrificial Code wove magic from looking backwards (effects-free solo pipe organ performances), Magnetism sounds like it was transmitted from either the future or another galaxy. That said, there is a unifying theme between the two albums, as both albums feature instrumentation that allows for exacting control of pitch and note duration. 

One last notable bit of unusual technique on display is the erratic phrasing of Malone’s melodies, as they feel as organic, alive, and unpredictable as a set of wind chimes. In this case, those hypothetical chimes would be massive, tuned to an otherworldly scale, and electronically enhanced, but otherwise behave much like the normal wind chimes that we have back here on earth (albeit sometimes with a more violent attack than expected). Given that, all five of these pieces feel very much like variations upon a single brilliant theme and that theme is best described as “unsettling deep space transmissions from an alien sound installation.”

I am especially fond of the final three pieces for varying reasons. Usually it is for their long decays full of gnarled dissonance and oscillation, but there are also undercurrents that resemble industrial machinery, viscerally distorted edges, and some especially nightmarish chords to enjoy as well. I am similarly impressed by the unusual trajectory that these pieces take, as the drones beneath Malone’s melodies are continually reshaped by the accumulating harmonies and oscillations that those melodies leave in their wake. The sense that the underlying landscape is being continually reshaped both harmonically and rhythmically beautifully enhances the unearthly and deeply hallucinatory nature of these pieces. 

In short, there truly is nothing familiar about this album to be found at all. Given that, some listeners may find the complete lack of conventional melodies and harmonies to be a bit too dissonant, amorphous, unpredictable, and challenging for their liking, but I suspect many more will see this album as the culmination of all the cool ideas that Malone and McDowall have been systematically perfecting for years. I personally fall quite decisively into the latter category, as Magnetism is an absolutely mesmerizing tour de force of otherwordly and psychotropic harmonies. This is easily one of the best headphone albums of the year and also one of the most boldly unique and essential releases in either artist’s body of work. 

Listen here.

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Drew McDowall, “The Third Helix” (Dais, 2018)

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The trajectory of Drew McDowall’s recent resurgence as a solo artist continues to be a compelling and unpredictable one, as The Third Helix is quite a bit different from either of his previous Dais outings. If Collapse felt like a lost Coil session and Unnatural Channel felt like a vintage noise tape, Helix feels like the assimilation of those two sides into something more forward-looking and unique. It does not quite unseat Collapse as my favorite of McDowall’s albums, but a couple of pieces easily rank among his finest work to date. More importantly, the album as a whole cumulatively casts a wonderfully immersive and disorienting spell that is ideal for headphone listening. This is the first of McDowall’s albums that makes me feel like he is currently in the midst of a fresh new creative phase rather than merely unearthing and reworking a deep backlog of unreleased material.

The opening “Rhizome” embodies a curious dichotomy that runs throughout The Third Helix, as McDowall seems equally drawn to both sublime beauty and collapsing, distended ruin. Those two sides rarely come together elsewhere on the album, but they certainly do on “Rhizome,” making it the strongest and most instantly gratifying piece on the album. While it deceptively begins with a disjointed series of warmly shuddering string flourishes adrift in a haze of slow-motion synth swells, the piece soon coheres into a recognizable structure before unexpectedly blossoming into a rapturous swirl of choral voices and achingly beautiful strings.

Once he hits that wonderful crescendo, however, McDowall immediately sets about dismantling it and the piece dissolves into a clanging and buzzing industrial coda. The Third Helix never quite delves into such naked and unambiguous beauty ever again, but it does feature at least one another piece of similar caliber, as the densely throbbing and see-sawing “Impulse” gradually transforms into a lysergically heavy feast of rattling drones and garbled voices. It manages to evoke a mood that is best described as “nightmarishly beautiful,” resembling a simple string piece that has been stretched and smeared into lurching horror. I also quite like “Nothing is Hidden,” which sounds somewhat similar, yet excises everything organic or melodic to leave only a shambling, hissing, and grinding mechanized hellscape.

Interestingly, the album’s brief closer “Immanent Condition” goes in completely the opposite direction, unfolding as a quietly melodic synth theme that merely frays at the edges rather than completely corrode and collapse. The rest of the album takes a much more subtle and willfully destructive approach though, as the appeal lies less in the strength of the motifs and the compositions than it does in how McDowall plays with time and pulls everything apart to weave a fragmented and kaleidoscopic fantasia. I have no idea how much of that strategy was premeditated, but it definitely seems like McDowall had enough strong ideas for only half an album and ingeniously opted to use the second half to mangle and manipulate his lesser ideas in interesting ways.

In some cases, such as the excellent “Proximity,” it is easy to see the ghost of a fully formed idea driving the churning and heaving abstraction. In most of the other cases, however, the degree to which McDowall succeeds is directly related to how closely I am listening to how things break apart. For example, “YLL” feels like a very simple pattern that has been reduced to a creeping granular ooze. Elsewhere, “Tendrils” is a quietly pretty ambient piece drifting through a reverberant ruin of stomping and clattering machinery, though it eventually loses its way and seems to morph into a completely different piece altogether.

The remaining piece, “False Memory,” is a bit of a fascinating outlier, as collaborator James K’s vocals swoon and slide in a bleary haze over an unpredictably throbbing and jackhammering backdrop. The prominent presence of vocals is an obvious departure for McDowall, but it is equally significant that he completely abandons his usual pattern-manipulation for something more unpredictable and organic. I like it, but it sounds like it belongs on a completely different album or possibly in some kind of avant-garde theater mindfuck.

If The Third Helix has a weakness, it is mostly that some of the more fragmented and deconstructed pieces are too insubstantial to make a real impact on their own or linger in my memory after they are gone. Also, a strong appreciation for nuance, texture, and detail is quite helpful in unlocking the full depth of McDowall’s artistry, as the straining seams, falling detritus, and sluggishly hallucinatory timescale play a crucial role in elevating several of these pieces into something much more compelling than is immediately obvious.

The Third Helix would probably be a more unambiguously fine album if it featured a better balance between melody/harmony and clattering post-industrial experimentation, yet it still feels like a significant step forward to me, as McDowall has found a novel way to work around his limitations. He has always been much better at coming up with great ideas than he has been at building those ideas into strong compositions with a satisfying arc. With this new approach to time-stretching, however, McDowall manages to drag and strain even the simplest ideas into song-like durations. If that was all he managed to do, it would not be much of an achievement, but almost every one of those distended and broken fragments plays a significant role in the assembly of a slow-burning, coherent, and wonderfully warped and dreamlike whole.

Samples can be found here.

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Drew McDowall, “Unnatural Channel” (Dais, 2017)

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Drew McDowall’s second solo album for Dais is a bit of a surprise detour from 2015’s more Coil-esque Collapse, largely abandoning the melodicism and eerie moods of its predecessor in favor of more fragmented and disorienting fare. Many of these pieces ambiguously ride the line between bold evolution and perplexing regression, as McDowall’s previously clear vision sounds broken and deconstructed into a miasma of lurching percussion, throbbing drones, and clattering metallic textures. 

As such, I had to re-calibrate my expectations a bit, but Unnatural Channel get points for taking chances and not going back to the same well a second time. While I am not sure if Unnatural Channel comes at all close to realizing McDowall’s potential, it is certainly an oft-compelling experiment, resembling a well-produced homage to the golden age of the noise/experimental cassette underground.

The opening “Tell Me The Name” initially starts the album on a deceptively subdued note, as the first minute or so is consumed with disjointed, cavernous, and brooding moans and a slow, erratic rhythm of electronic blurts, hollow clangs, and washes of hiss. Gradually, the individual components of that pulse get closer together and cohere into a heavy, stumbling groove with viscerally pounding percussion. Almost before I even realize what a cool trick McDowall has pulled off, however, the piece dissipates once more into fitful dark ambient abstraction. 

To a large degree, that strange trajectory sets the tone for the whole album, as McDowall returns again to deep, heavy grooves weaved together from seemingly unrelated materials, but deems his work complete once he reaches that point and goes no further. That aesthetic certainly has its appeal, as a piece like “Habitat” sounds menacing, futuristic, and inhuman. However, it is quite a constrained vision to explore, causing much of Unnatural Channel to feel like slight variations on a single theme (though that theme admittedly sounds like it would be the perfect soundtrack for some kind of Terminator-esque mechanized apocalypse).

Naturally, the most memorable moments tend to be those where McDowall adds some twists or surprises to his “lumbering robotic menace” template. One such highlight is “This is What It’s Like,” which culminates in a creepy, insistent loop of Roxy Farman’s voice whispering “this is what it’s like…sleep-deprived” over a clanging and shuddering march of buzzing electronics and metallic percussion. 

Elsewhere, “Unnatural Channel (Part 2)” combines its crunching, stomping juggernaut of a groove with a fairly straightforward and melodic pulse to create a shambling and grotesque caricature of synthpop. Wetware’s Farman surfaces yet again on the all-too-brief closer “Unshielded,” which conclusively steals the show with its deranged swirl of animal whoops, nerve-jangling chopped and overlapping vocal snatches, pounding low end, and snarls of grinding electronics. It feels like a full-on nightmare set in some kind of cyberpunk jungle. Also, in a perverse way, the extreme brevity is kind of an asset, as “Unshielded” packs a perfect visceral punch, then abruptly leaves me reeling and wondering what the hell just happened.

As with Collapse, Unnatural Channel feels like the work of an artist with a lot of great ideas that don’t always translate into complete, fully formed songs. It is hard to say whether or not McDowall has evolved as a composer since his debut, as strong melodic or harmonic motifs are in noticeably short supply here. However, many of these songs have quite an inventive and deftly executed dynamic arc, even if the song always seems to quickly come to an end once the rabbit is out of the hat and the rhythm is fully established. 

As a result, I cannot tell if Unnatural Channel is just a series of cool (if a bit baggy) modular synth jams that never went further or if we have instead entered McDowall’s bold new Percussion Phase. Whichever it is, “Unshielded” is the current zenith of this direction, unleashing a wonderful and unhinged cacophony that starts at full power and ends long before it overstays its welcome. Aside from that, Unnatural Channel is primarily enjoyable as just a feast of heavy industrial textures and inventive rhythms, resembling field recordings from a monstrous, rumbling factory floor in a bleakly dystopian and inhuman future.

Listen here.

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Drew McDowall, “Collapse” (Dais, 2015)

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Somehow Drew McDowall has managed to be involved with the most interesting fringes of electronic and experimental music for over three decades without ever stepping into the spotlight himself, most notably working with Psychic TV during their ’80s heyday and teaming up with Coil throughout the ’90s. Lately, he has mostly been quietly focusing on occasional remixes and soundtrack work, though he intermittently records as half of modular synth duo Compound Eye. Collapse is a bit of modular synth album too, but it sounds almost nothing like Compound Eye. Instead, it intermittently sounds like a great unfinished Coil album (when it does not instead sound like a collage experiment or a modular synth improv session).

Collapse opens in somewhat counter-intuitive fashion, as three-part “The Chimeric Mesh Withdraws” stretches out for almost 20 minutes and takes quite a while to fully come together: initially, it is just an ominous and amorphous haze of echoing clicks, disjointed piano, and somewhat shrill and nightmarish synth whines. After about eight minutes, however, McDowall’s floating and seemingly improvisatory hellscape gives way to an eerily buzzing and oscillating synth motif and “Chimeric Mesh” blossoms into a thing of disquieting and alien beauty. 

It is also around this time where Coil comparisons become absolutely unavoidable, as the haunting central theme is increasingly buffeted by peripheral electronic flourishes that resemble giant swooping robotic birds of prey. By the end, it completely makes sense why McDowall wanted to lead off with such a piece, as it is a gloriously sinister, hallucinatory, and weirdly melodic mindfuck. This is exactly the sort of thing that obsessive Coil fans have unknowingly been waiting for.

The following “Hypnotic Congress” is nearly as stellar, but considerably more condensed, launching immediately into a futuristic and mechanized-sounding pulse that becomes increasingly more textured and substantial. Around the halfway point, it transforms into something considerably weirder, morphing into a clanging, lurching industrial rhythm beneath a shifting, artificial-sounding vocal sample that sounds like an infernal choir of damned souls. It is quite a wonderfully menacing and inhuman-sounding piece and a perfect continuation of the momentum started with “Chimeric Mesh.” Unexpectedly, however, the remaining three songs take somewhat diverging paths.

On “Through is Out,” McDowall is assisted with some violin from Nicky Mao (Hiro Kone), weaving a considerably warmer and more human-sounding spell. There is still some mind-warping aberrance to be found though, as McDowall’s synthesizers take on a sickly, strangled sizzle as the piece gradually descends into darker and more melancholy territory. 

The brief “Convulse,” on the other hand, is basically little more than a collage experiment, as a female voice (or two?) endlessly repeat the phrase “I convulsed” over a wobbly and echo-heavy rhythm. Later, the closing “Each Surface of Night” takes the album into a considerably more drone-centric direction, largely eschewing anything deviant or nightmarish in favor of a dense, slowly undulating thrum before belatedly perking up into an understated crescendo of twinkling and delay-enhanced minor-key arpeggios. That makes for an odd and somewhat perverse ending, as the final moments sound like an escalation into a more structured and melodic piece that never comes.

Collapse is a difficult album to form a solid opinion on, as it frequently flirts with greatness while simultaneously highlighting why McDowall has avoided recording a solo album in the past. The main issue is that Drew seems to be primarily an “idea man,” albeit one who has quite an impressive attention to detail and texture (he gets some brilliantly twisted sounds out of his synths). He is not a particularly great composer though. 

Consequently, Collapse is filled with dazzling moments that either never quite make the leap into something more, go on a little too long, or get diluted by somewhat meandering surroundings. Also, the final three pieces make it feel like McDowall finished a wonderful album, then realized that he needed to find another 15 minutes of material to fill the second half of the record. 

They do not exactly feel like filler, but they do feel like experiments or sketches that are not completely in line with the striking, distinctive, and focused one-two punch of “Chimeric Mesh” and “Hypnotic Congress.” I like those first two pieces a lot though, so I guess that means that I like Collapse a lot as well, as they take up most of the album. And I do genuinely like Collapse a lot—it just feels a bit more like a prodigious talent in need of a foil than the epic, well-deserved “coming-out party” that it could have been.

Listen here.