Drew McDowall ‎- Agalma (2020) FULL ALBUM

Dais Records ‎- DAIS158 (US, 2020)
PURCHASE: drewmcdowall.bandcamp.com/alb...
00:00 1. Agalma I (Folding)
06:05 2. Agalma II (ft. Caterina Barbieri)
11:09 3. Agalma III (Beacon ft. Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe)
16:32 4. Agalma IV (ft. Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe)
19:57 5. Agalma V (ft. Kali Malone)
27:27 6. Agalma VI
33:16 7. Agalma VII (Toyor El Janeh ft. Bashar Suleiman, Elvin Brandhi & MSYLMA)
42:30 8. Agalma I (ft. Maralie Armstrong-Rial)
48:39 9. Abandoned Object
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 “joy, terror, and the elegiac” as a centering inspiration - or, phrased more bluntly, “that 'what the fuck is going on' feeling.”
As 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 sacred vertigo of yawning naves rising into untouchable night skies. It's a vision of industrial music as enigma and invocation, cryptic hymnals of shrouded beauty summoned in catacombs and crumbling cathedrals.
Despite its depths, Agalma is also an album of immediacy and emotion. Celestial laments of and for times of unrest and suffering. McDowall characterizes his initial intention for this music as an to attempt to convey experiences he felt incapable of putting into words: “To try and approach sublimity, or at least acknowledge it in some way.” Agalma more than acknowledges the ineffable - it embodies it.
The album features original photography and design by artist Caroline Schub.
(Text: artist bandcamp)

[@Sweatyjpegaddict]

Wish peter “sleazy” Christopherson was here with us still to listen to this record.
I bet He’d be proud of Drew.

[@40mmmm23]

Drew’s music is already incredible but to bring these collaborators on this project. Wow this record will live on until society eventually crumbles

[@MartialBessou-jm9rh]

Juste fabuleux
Mille merci pour le partage 🎉🎉❤😅

[@alextow3755]

Trance inmediato... muchas gracias... cordial saludo desde Bogotá Colombia...

[@michelesgaramella9643]

Another world. At times it´s mystical

[@sorcerydiamonds]

oh yes

[@mrspindlethorn]

Thank you for your excellent taste

[@ifasteio]

magical, love the robert lowe part

[@psy-viruz]

perfection in an absolute

[@dorinda4012]

An incredible musical treasure, thank you for sharing!

[@tanoduko]

making performance with sounds

[@corruptedsimone2833]

beautiful...

[@darrenbrown6877]

Great recording

[@seamusdarcy5513]

Wonderful reflection mirroring the times in which we live; as lyrical and melodious as a symphony of poorly and well-maintained cement mixers

[@EvaSerrano95]

Amazing album

[@BlueArcStreaming]

Phenomenal

[@louisloulou4929]

Fantastixxx neurones stimulator

[@sickmindedteenager]

First time reading the description - so much passion and research behind it: I can tell. Great album once again added to my 'studying music' playlist.
Many thanks

[@Ridaha]

I love how these effects work on the Arabic words.

[@auerstaedt628]

Époustouflant !

[@jimadler2430]

the cheese touch

[@adinfinitum000]

Agalma = Άγαλμα
which means statue

[@user-el6xr1bh9p]

❤️

[@MrThomas1958]

thx

[@sebastiankunze3045]

New skin thank you ( habs alt deutsche Sprüche Buch dabei ) haben mir wieder Tracks gerippt ! Gruß etu

[@teodorodrumond1373]

✨⚔️

[@stusis]

#2021

[@lacanian_lifter]

Does this have to do with the concept as employed by Lacan?

[@moussetache1815]

Could be, by the looks of this album cover. Anything can be the object of a desire, so could this hardly identifiable thing we see here.

[@Noisy_CL]

buenísimo

[@rapathyk]

What album could this be followed by?

[@huckoo]

Jon Hassel Fourth World Series possibly

[@vladstroescu]

This music gives me goosebumps but not necessarily of the good kind and I have no ideea why RUclips keeps recommending it to me.

[@mx3khvlif]

Yo, it literally just kept recommending till I finally pressed play

[@fleurtalbot7596]

...... a door has opened to a place never before known.... I shall walk through and never return.... ♥️

[@reiniergamboa]

RUclips knows you need more drugs

[@toniandrade2226]

, em casLis wa e a

[@sabrinafinkel92]

And Drew gets money from you for uploading his work? Artists as good as this, deserve to be paid. Hope he gave you permission.