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“TIME IS of no importance,” said the French electronic composer and drone doyen Éliane Radigue, writing in 2019. “All that counts is the duration necessary for a seamless development. My music evolves organically. It’s like a plant. We never see a plant move but it is growing continually.”

If you were asked to seek out a quote that defined the particular and unique qualities of drone music you could do worse than Radigue’s definition of her unique, hypnotic compositions. Sifting through the hundreds of remarkable records nominated for this How To Buy article, I was firstly struck both by how challenging it would be to whittle it down to just 10 but also how, beyond the basic qualities of tone and pitch, the best of these recommendations have an effect on the listener akin to a chemically altered state, a seemingly eternal, ever-evolving sound that brings about feelings of trancelike temporal disruption, transcendence and psychedelic otherness.

“The best of these have an effect akin to a chemically altered state.”

The other revelation was the deep historical roots of drone, and how many ancient musics began with an instrument that was designed to create a single sustained or repeated note: the Australian didgeridoo, the Ancient Egyptian arghul, the launeddas pipes of Sardinia, pibroch bagpipe music, the chants of Gothic organum, Gaelic psalm singing, the Portuguese gaita, the Uilleann pipes of Ireland, the heavy-meds rhaita drone of Jbala Sufi trance (as represented by The Master Musicians Of Joujouka) and the buzz and overtones of the Kirana school of Indian classical music, promulgated and modified in the recordings made by Pandit Pran Nath and La Monte Young. You could quickly get lost in this world, and I did, so for my convenience and yours I’ve divided the 10 records into individual sub-genres.