Featuring more than six hours of music, this box set (mastered by
Jim O'Rourke) presents a vast collection of tracks of remarkable coherence, which attest to the uniqueness and maturity of Kevin Drumm's artistic approach.
For more than thirty years, Kevin Drumm has developed a unique sonic language situated at the intersection of drone, electronics, improvisation and sound abstraction. Continuously evolving, his work has become one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary experimental music.
Comprising more than six hours of music, The Mild Temper presents an extensive collection of pieces built from gradual transformations, micro-acoustic events and frequency-based structures characteristic of Drumm's practice. Across six discs, the music explores varying states of density, resonance and spatiality, reflecting a sustained interest in the physical properties of sound and their perception over extended durations.
The title, The Mild Temper, suggests a quiet force rather than an overt gesture. Sonic materials often appear restrained, held in a delicate balance between stasis and motion. Small shifts gradually alter the acoustic landscape as layers of frequencies emerge, recede and recombine throughout the listening experience.
Avoiding narrative and dramatic development, these works offer immersion in highly detailed sonic environments where every element contributes to the construction of a deeply absorbing listening space. Attention to texture, depth and duration forms the connective thread throughout the collection.
With The Mild Temper, Kevin Drumm continues his exploration of sound as an autonomous phenomenon, presenting a body of work of remarkable coherence that reflects both the singularity and maturity of his artistic practice.
Experimental musician based in Chicago Kevin Drumm (born 1970) is one of the world's pre-eminent prepared guitar players. Since his emergence in the experimental music scene in the 1990s, he has perpetually shaken up conventions of various sub-genres with his major albums, for example, shifting from the tabletop/prepared guitar with his first self-titled album, to noise with Sheer Hell Miasma, to ambient/drone with Imperial Distortion. Drumm has collaborated with many international artists from various musical scenes, from improvised and electroacoustic music to free jazz, noise and industrial music: Taku Sugimoto,
Martin Tétreault,
Axel Dörner, Lucio Capece & Radu Malfatti,
Jérôme Noetinger,
Thomas Ankersmit, Prurient,
Daniel Menche, John Wiese, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark,
Mika Vainio,
Jim O'Rourke, Jason Lescalleett,
Peter Rehberg,
Michael Esposito...
He has also worked with the artist group Simparch.