Oorstof and Het Bos team up for Water Damage, the Loudly droning collective from Austin, Texas that dives headfirst into ‘Maximum Repetition, Minimal Deviation’, with connections to Swans, Astral Spirits Records, Spray Paint, Black Eyes, USA/Mexico, More Eaze, Thor & Friends, Marriage and SUR …

WATER DAMAGE (US)

By Byron Coley:

There is something really special about music based on drones. Whether it’s the vocals of Pandit Pran Nath, the ARP 2500 of Eliane Radigue, or the nearly-blown amps of Sunn O))), by changing the listeners’s focus on details to one that favors flow, drones are uniquely capable of transporting our brains far far away. The music of Water Damage, the loudly droning Austin collective is a goddamn splendid example of how the process works. Using the motto, “Maximal Repetition Minimal Deviation,” Water Damage create glowing fields of drones that pretty much suck you right in and boil you alive. They prefer if each of their sonic ideas takes up a whole reel of tape, and once they start they don’t look back. Everything proceeds towards an imaginary end point that is only achieved when the tape starts flapping.

The members are all vets of various projects – Spray Paint, Black Eyes, USA/Mexico, More Eaze, Thor & Friends, Marriage, Swans, SUR, Astral Spirits Records, among others. Their approach to the form is less front-loaded than most of their peers, and the surface of their sound is sometimes ruffled by aural events of an un-drone-like nature. But the main gush is usually a blend of harmonic tones and textures pointing towards a goal that is just out of ear-shot, just over the next bluff, and perhaps forever just beyond our reach.

‘If you’re in the mood to lose yourself in the sound of a jam-room burning to the ground under the intense pile-driving weight of volume and distortion, look no further.’
Tim Clarke on In E, Dusted Magazine

‘If Robert Hampson merged the worlds of Loop and Main, then something like this would have been the through line. A stinking brawl through a Texas dust storm, indeed’
Simon Kirk, on In E, Sun 13