A Thread of Light, A Trembling Sound – The Closing of the 10th edition of Bucharest Photofest
A legendary figure in experimental and industrial music, Drew McDowall (ex-Coil) takes the stage with a rare and immersive live performance – a sonic ritual rooted in decades of avant-garde exploration. Drawing from the deep well of mystical drone, modular synthesis, and haunting electroacoustic textures, McDowall crafts a sound world where the sacred collides with the profane.
His most recent work, A Thread, Silvered and Trembling, co-produced with Randall Dunn, fuses pibroch-inspired atmospheres with spectral voices and dissonant echoes. It is a music of immanence, tension, and transcendence – charged with raw spiritual force. His backstory reads like a primer of psychedelic fiction woven into statements of the unbelievable, superhuman, and outright insane.
After a stint with The Poems, a band he started with his then-wife Rose McDowall, he joined the ranks of UK avant-gardists Genesis P-Orridge, David Tibet, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, John Balance, and countless others who would come to define the industrial music’s blossoming experimental vanguard. McDowall eventually collaborated with Psychic TV and became a full-time member of the hugely influential cult outfit Coil, where his influence shaped the group’s later output: exercises in magical practice and music-as-psychoactive effect.
The closing night of the 10th edition of Bucharest Photofest brought together two major figures of the international experimental scene for an outstanding performance that transcended musical boundaries.
Drew McDowall, a central figure in avant-garde and industrial music – known for his influential work with Coil and Psychic TV – delivered a rare and deeply focused live set. His performance combined decades of sonic research into a complex, immersive experience built on modular synthesis, drone textures, and subtle rhythmic tension.
Accompanying him, visual artist Pedro Maia added a distinctive analog film layer, working live with 16mm material and creating visuals that responded in real time to the evolving sound structure. The result was an integrated audiovisual composition – rigorous, hypnotic, and profoundly expressive.
The evening stood as a fitting conclusion to this year’s festival: a moment of concentration and dialogue between sound and image, tradition and experimentation – reaffirming Bucharest Photofest’s role as a platform for contemporary visual and sonic culture.
Former Psychic TV, Coil, and The Poems member Drew McDowall’s A Thread, Silvered and Trembling moves like weather sealed within. Its four extended pieces ask the ear to inhabit changes of air rather than a simple sequence of hooks
Working with Randall Dunn at Brooklyn’s “sound temple,” Circular Ruin, McDowall anchors the sound in depth of field with a palette that reads as both chamber and electronic at once.
The final night of Bucharest Photofest 2025 unfolded in an atmosphere of intensity and reverence.
The concert marked the festival’s closing moment, transforming Control Club into a space of deep sonic and visual immersion.
Photography by Miluță Flueraș
