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Stars of the Lid: The Ballasted Orchestra

In the 1990s there were a few artists tucked into out-of-the-way corners of the United States making music defined by its vastness. In Richmond, Va., were Labradford, whose slow-moving and cinematic pieces showed how much could be wrung from simplicity and repetition. Up in Dearborn, Mich., Windy Weber and Carl Hultgren were making sensual drone music inspired both by the endless held tones of Lamonte Young and the textural romanticism of 4AD. And down in East Austin, Tex., there were Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride, who made druggy and internally-focused drone music as Stars of the Lid.  

Stars of the Lid's 1995 debut was called Music for Nitrous Oxide and it had a track called "e;Tape Hiss Makes Me Happy"e;; those two phrases offer a serviceable definition of what SOTL's early music was all about. Working at home and recording on their Yamaha MT-120 and Tascam Portastudio 424, Wiltzie and McBride were patiently mapping a new terrain for experimental music. Along with groups like the previously mentioned Windy & Carl in the United States and UK groups like Flying Saucer Attack and Amp, they were taking the tools of D.I.Y. culture (recording at home, getting the word out through print zines, releasing music on smaller, specialized labels, demonstrating a fondness for cheap and easy cassettes) and using them to make abstract music for deeply immersive listening. Music For Nitrous Oxide mixed metallic drones and feedback with the sounds of strange voices; the effect was something like tuning into two radio stations at once, hearing strange disembodied phrases mixed with weird music that floated across the plains. For their third album, 1997's The Ballasted Orchestra, which has been out of print for some time and has now been reissued on vinyl by Kranky, they did away with the voices and followed their drones to a place where words have no meaning. 

The Ballasted Orchestra is four sides of shifting guitar-based drone, with textures that range from thick and menacing to thin and ethereal. For those more familiar with SOTL's work from the last decade (ambient music classics And Their Refinement of the Decline and The Tired Sounds of...) what's most striking about Ballasted is how raw and ragged it sounds, in the best possible way. As the the SOTL project matured, the music grew more pristine, incorporating strings and horns and drawing inspiration from carefully composed music by artists like Arvo Part. In 1997, when these tracks were recorded, Wiltzie and McBride were firmly committed to seeing how much feeling they could wring from guitars and effects pedals. 

Turns out it was quite a lot. Some psychedelic drone music seems like it's designed to soundtrack a trip through the cosmos; Stars of the Lid invites you to close your eyes and explore your own mind. And the range of sensations and moods is surprisingly wide. The disorienting "e;Sun Drugs"e; mixes thin tendrils of wavering drone with trebly guitar notes that feel random like wind chimes. "e;Taphead"e; is closer to the airy drift of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois' Apollo while "e;Fucked Up (3:57 AM)"e; is tensely cinematic, with overlapping chords that are finally interrupted with a cavernous bass that sounds like a tuba blast echoing through an empty gym.

But the highlight and centerpiece is the side-long "e;Music for Twin Peaks Episode #30"e;, which is split into two parts. David Lynch's television series ended its two-season run with episode #29, so the clever title (and Stars of the Lid have always had good ones) affirms that they're using their imaginations to soundtrack a fictional world. And while the work of frequent Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti's work has been an inspiration to Wiltzie and McBride (see "e;Mullholland"e; on The Tired Sounds of), at this point the connection was more thematic than sonic. If anything, the piece is more likely to bring to mind the industrial soundscaping of Lynch's sound design partner Alan Splet. But SOTL's speculative soundtrack is absolutely masterful, a drawn-out throb of drone that feels vividly alive. At high volume it taps into the oceanic quality of shoegaze, dissolving boundaries between the listener and the listened-to. 

The "e;Twin Peaks"e; nod helps explain why Stars of the Lid still feel so relevant and why this music, while deeply connected to the wide-open world of 90s tape-based psychedelia, still feels so current. We'll never stop soundtracking our space and creating virtual worlds. It might happen with a YouTube or an installation but in 1997 there were 4-track tapes recorded by friends in dark rooms that somehow found their way to other people who understood the transmission.