It really isn’t until about four minutes into, “Nautilus 2009,” the first track on “The Drone Gnome” that we hear anything. A hiss slowly increases in static until a ringing tone, which becomes piercing before more silence eventually heralds a farily cracking noise pulse. If you can hang around until minute twelve, you will be rewarded.

This two track CD-R by Jos Smolders is a collage of familiar ambient compositional faves: found sounds, noise, industrial and subterranean motifs, etc. Like the 20 minute opener, “Igheiobtgbewxdobn” is more or less monochromatic until the introduction of singualr sounds, here more of an echoing, environmental setting that the harshness of “Nautilus 2009.”

Smolders expresses an ambivalence to drone in general in his liner notes to “The Drone Gnome.” I doubt that influenced his effort here, but it does suggest that his is a superficial experience of the genre. The two tracks here are here and then gone, and the intent is never revealed. 5/10 -- Mike Wood (17 February, 2010)