Out of the mouths of babes you sometimes hear words of wisdom and unexpected insight, or pure unfettered imagination, or maybe even stories to deal with their fears. And sometimes those words may inspire their mother to create a wonderful album. That’s the story behind “Mr. Underson,” where Mila Drone uses tales created by her young children as the taking-off point for her music.
Now, with a name like Mila Drone, you might have certain expectations as to what you’ll hear. While there are certainly drone elements present here, the main (or at least, equal) force behind this music is electric guitar. The six string is mostly slowly played single or double notes, with some fuzzing effect and echo. It’s embellished throughout by some interesting noise and electronic elements and, there’s no avoiding it, all kinds of drones.
Even though each song uses similar elements, there are different outcomes. Opening track “The Moon Descended to Earth to Raise the Dead” starts with a bit of a heavy metal guitar feel, while “Oskar” almost has a cowboy movie soundtrack vibe, maybe taking place out in the Western shoegaze territories. On some of the songs, like the title track, you’ll notice mood more than musical style; in this case melancholy with moments of aggression. While I wouldn’t say this music is always calm (in fact, it’s quite unsettled at points), overall it conveys a lovely, dreamlike quality.
You can find the album with English titles on the Soundsphere label, or find it in the original Polish on Mila’s own Bandcamp page. The Polish version includes some of the stories that inspired the music under the “lyrics” links; if you care to explore the words that came out of the mouths of Mila’s babes, you’ll find out many things, including why it’s worth being small.