Drew McDowall

Born in Paisley, Scotland, Drew McDowall has, since the late 1970s, developed a career spanning post-punk, experimental electronics, drone and ambient. He began with Poems, an art-punk trio formed with Rose McDowall, before joining Psychic TV in the 1980s and becoming an official member of Coil in 1994. Within that group, Drew McDowall contributed to a period characterized by slow, hypnotic and industrial forms, notably on Time Machines (1998), Astral Disaster (1999) and Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 1 (1999). Relocating to the United States in the early 2000s, he later launched Compound Eye with Tres Warren of Psychic Ills. From 2012 onward he focused increasingly on his solo work, built around dense soundscapes, drones, ritual textures and a sonic practice that blends electronic abstraction with the physical presence of sound. His discography under his own name includes Collapse (2015), Unnatural Channel (2017), Third Helix (2018), Agalma (2020) and A Thread, Silvered and Trembling (2024). He has also collaborated with Kali Malone, Caterina Barbieri, Hiro Kone, Puce Mary and Rabit, and since 2018 has been presenting a staged reinterpretation of Time Machines at festivals and venues devoted to experimental music.