EarthBall – Actual Earth Music: Volume 3 & 4

Description

EARTHBALL are an avant/noise/rock wrecking ball of a band from Nanaimo, Canada. Rooted in total improvisation, free expression, and a deeply psychedelic sensibility, EarthBall operate on pure instinct. They hurtle onwards in a combustion of spontaneous composition, shootingfrom the hip, as they fall out of the sky ablaze. The group encompassesIsabel Ford (vocals, bass), John Brennan (drums, percussion), Jeremy VanWyke (vocals, guitar, trumpet), Kellan Maclaughlin (guitar, talkbox), and LiamMurphy (saxophone). Each member brings a rich and varied musical history,with past and present projects including Shearing Pinx, Plan Your Future,Kamikaze Nurse, Eschatons, and Psychedelic Dirt. Collectively andindividually, they have collaborated with artists such as Deerhoof, RavenChacon, Chris Corsano, and William Hooker, deepening the bands
exploratory reach and collective language.

Since forming in 2021, EarthBall have released six cassettes and threefervently received LPs on Upset The Rhythm, including Novembers widelyacclaimed Outside Over There. Their latest release, Actual Earth Music -Volume 3 & 4, follows the first instalment in the series and captures two mind-quaking highlights from last winters European tour. This is EarthBall plungingto full fathom five, transforming into something rich and strange – channelingthe fleeting moment as it fractures, erupts, and dissolves into the unknown.
Side A captures a thumping performance at Cave12 in Geneva. Frazzledfrom a white-knuckle alpine descent, the group settles into a hypnotic sprawl,stretching time and form across a colossal 53-minute set (with the first 22minutes presented on the LP; the full performance appears on the CDedition). The Cave12 recording is a study in tension and release; ruminative,volatile, and barely contained. Drums stumble and surge, saxophone howlscut through the air, and Ford and Van Wykes voices briefly pull together the
circle twice, before the tumult lapses into a spinning maelstrom.

Side B meanwhile presents a scorched excerpt from EarthBalls crushingperformance at Le Guess Who? Festival. As Van Wyke reflects: Having themost excellent Dwarfs of East Agouza play before us only heightened ourintention to bring the noise. Listening back, the thing that strikes me most ishow we truly were operating in the ever-elusive but always sought-aftergroup mind. Ninety-degree changes are super tight. Izzy and I are finishingeach others sentences. Liams horn is cradling our outer and inner space.

Kellans talk box rains down like the voice of a reawakened spirit, and all thishavoc is safely stowed in the rumbling ox-cart of Johns solid drumming.Actual Earth Music – Volume 3 & 4 marks another ascent in EarthBalls ever-expanding, totemic discography, an ecstatic storm of raw immediacy andunfiltered expression.

Tracklist

SIDE A 01. Live at Cave12
SIDE B 02. Live at EKKO