Drone Mass

The late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Drone Mass is a mysterious and richly atmospheric work inspired by ancient Egyptian Coptic hymn.

Two of Ireland's leading ensembles joined together, touring three venues across Ireland, to perform this soundscape of voices, strings, and electronics.

The illustration is a stylised abstraction of early Egyptian imagery—the scarab represents rebirth, resurrection, and transformation, and ties into the ideas of the Holy Trinity coming forth from the ‘great invisible Spirit’. The design responds to the idea of the drone as sound and, through the scarab’s outstretched wings, alludes to the drone as object.