Catherine Christer Hennix, drone composer

November 26, 2023 8:03 AM

Catherine Christer Hennix (1948–2023) was a composer of minimalist, electronic, and drone music. Grounded in maths and sciences, her music adapted ideas from Indian ragas, Arabic music, jazz, and blues. She had a a wide ranging career across academia, writing, painting and sculpture, and intellectual movements from Fluxus to Lacan to Sufi Islam. She studied with Stockhausen, took inspiration from La Monte Young and Pandit Pran Nath, but had a modest commercial showing unlike her contemporaries Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Her music is astonishing.

I'm not the best guide to her career or music; today is the first time I heard of her, to my embarrassment. I'm hoping others can offer their knowledge of her work. Her Electric Harpsichord is hypnotic, a 1976 electronic keyboard and tape loop piece borrowing from raga and creating a densely layered drone. Blues Alif Lam Mim In The Mode Of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis could well have been inspiration for Hans Zimmer's score for the 2021 Dune film. And the metal machine elements of Unbegrenzt sound in conversation with Einstürzende Neubauten's recording of Halber Mensch.

A few of her pieces can also be found on SoundCloud, Bandcamp and YouTube.

posted by Nelson (9 comments total)

Thank you for the post. I'll be listening to some of her music today. RIP.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:18 AM on November 26, 2023

thanks for some Sunday listening, Nelson!
posted by djseafood at 8:22 AM on November 26, 2023

Wonderful pieces. If anyone wants more artists in the same vein:
Eliane Radigue is a contemporary with a huge collection of work - Trilogie de la Mort is her most famous.
Claire M. Singer is a more recent artist, her organ pieces are amazing, my favorite is Fairge.
posted by q*ben at 8:40 AM on November 26, 2023 [6 favorites]

How cool to see Christer Hennix on the Blue! Also worthwhile is her Deontic Miracle project:

Frustrated with the jazz musicians’ inability to comprehend and play the intervals of just intonation, she pared the group down to the trio of herself, her brother, and Isgren and christened the live-electronic ensemble The Deontic Miracle.

More drones, different timbres.
posted by german_bight at 9:34 AM on November 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

Wow, what a fascinating combination of interests and fields of study and endeavor. "Alongside music making, she wrote poetry, logical equations and Japanese Noh dramas."

Listening to a piece now. Thanks for this!
posted by the sobsister at 9:35 AM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Thanks for this, new music for the playlist

I read "drone music" in the title and thought of Stockhausen's Helicopter Quartet which is probably due for some kind of homage using drones. Would be a lot cheaper too.
posted by edward_5000 at 10:24 AM on November 26, 2023

.

There’s a kind of minimalism that starts from the idea ‘what if we take all the aspects of an art form, except the last thing we can’t take away because then we’d have nothing’.

Hennix’s Electric Harpsichord is like that. There’s no melody, there’s no rhythm or chords. What it has is tone, and then Hennix figured out what could be done starting from that point. I find it really beautiful.

I’m glad Hennix lived long enough to know that her music was being found by new generations, but I can’t help but think that it’s a shame she didn’t get to enjoy it a few years more.
posted by Kattullus at 1:18 PM on November 26, 2023

Damn, I'm listening to Electric Harpsichord, I wish I had heard of her sooner. Would have been nice to appreciate her while she was around.

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posted by evilDoug at 4:10 PM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mod note: [btw, this post was added to the sidebar and the Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:31 AM on November 27, 2023 [3 favorites]