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PREFIXAUDIOFILE22GrowingNew York’s hardest working dronesdestroy convention.words: Fred Miketa Photo: Noel Von HarmonsonClose your eyes and imagine that you’re in an igloo. You’reall by yourself. It’s pitch black. Then you start to hear thesounds in your mind, rekindling the sensations of love,life, death, and suffering. Open your eyes. You’ve justexperienced the cerebral din of Kranky Records’ ambientguitar drone masters, Growing.Hailing from New York City–by way of Olympia,WA–guitarist Joe Denardo and bassist Kevin Doria take thesensations of human life and weave them into soundscapesof the most intricately primitive proportions. It’s a bit unfairto categorize a duo as colorful as Growing as merely aninstrumental indie rock project. Their sound consists oflayer upon layer of subsonic heaviness, unresolved feedback,and gorgeous flutters of delay, consummating a style andvision all its own.The duo began playing together in college, both intenton escaping the constrictions of their respective hardcore/punk backgrounds. “Growing was the first thing each of ustook seriously in any way, so it was always just about makinggood sounds from the start,” says Denardo. Serious is agross understatement. Since Growing’s formation in the fallof 2001, the duo has managed to release seven albums withre-releases of several of the band’s limited cassette projects,a split remix EP, and a new full-length on the way; not tomention the duo’s latest record, The Soul of the Rainbow andthe Harmony of Light, which is a weighty homage to an 1893essay by Bainbridge Bishop regarding the relationshipbetween color and sound.Growing has played everywhere, from all-ages hardcoreshows to the highly regarded All Tomorrow’s Partiesfestival in England. These experiences have exponentiallyevolved their creative process. With each release, theduo’s ambitions transcend the conventions of an alreadyrevolutionary sound palate. “I like to concentrate on howthe sounds are resolving themselves,” Denardo muses. “Andwhen things are good, everything is very even and I feel likeI’m not at a shitty venue anymore.”www.growingsound.com, www.kranky.netGrowing: Joe Denardo (left) and Kevin Doria