Earth: "A Bureaucratic Desire for Extra Capsular Extraction" CD Review (Southern Lord)

Last month, Southern Lord released Earth’s complete first recordings from 1990 as a single CD/double-LP set entitled A Bureaucratic Desire For Extra-Capsular Extraction. While these tracks have trickled out over the past two decades on Earth’s debut EP “Extra-Capsular Extraction” (1991) and as bonus tracks appended to the reissue of Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars (2001), Mell Dettmer remastered the tracks on this reissue/compilation and gives Earth some noticeable dynamics and edges to the music that weren’t heard on the original releases.

This recording has a storied history as Earth was signed to Sub*Pop during the first wave of grunge and came to Sub*Pop’s attention during a show where Earth was opening for L7. (This show sounds as stylistically different as when The Ramones opened for Black Sabbath). These sessions were recorded with Mike Lastra at Smegma Studios in 1990 and the session master tapes ultimately went missing. Bootlegs of then unreleased songs first surfaced as 16RPM singles and later the complete session was issued as a limited edition bootleg LP entitled 10 1990.

One has to admire Sub*Pop for signing Earth as this isn’t the sort of music that was (or is) going to get on the radio but yet it spawned a legion of followers (notably Sunn O)))). The disc’s seven tracks are mostly glacially slow drone. There is a dark overtone across the disc but there are also elements of beauty and light. The music builds upon repetitive, throbbing waves of guitar lines which seem to organically grow in size while still leaving space to breathe. The cold, industrial clanging of the drum machine adds an element of heaviness to the music but there is enough texture and light to keep the music from tipping over into the claustrophobic darkness that some of the bands that followed Earth embraced. Earth even comes close to a ‘radio friendly’ song as Kurdt Cobain and Kelly Canary (from Dicklesss) sing on “Divine and Bright”, which is the closest that Earth will ever get to the “Seattle sound”.

Earth have recently been added to the lineup for the Sunn O))) curated Roadburn Festival which takes place on April 15, 2011 at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.

Links:
Earth

Thrones, Growing and Plotkin/Wyskida Playing in Brooklyn Tomorrow (Mar. 31)

Todd P has a big show tomorrow night at a new venue in Brooklyn. There are a lot of great acts on this bill for only an $8 ticket.

TroublemanUnlimited reports that the "GROWING's going on a tour of Europe with Thrones and WOLF EYES. Should be fun. GROWING will have their new record entitled VISION SWIM with them in limited tour pressing form. The pressing is limited to 100 with 6-color screened and hand assembled/glued covers by Andrew and Sara of Wacky Prints. These covers are REALLY REALLY nice looking, and were very expensive to make."

Here are the details about tomorrow's show:

DEATH BY AUDIO - 49 S 2ND ST
49 S 2nd St btwn Wythe & Kent | Williamsburg, Brooklyn
L to Bedford, JM to Marcy, G to Metropolitan | 8pm | $8 | ALL AGES

:: STAGE NAPROXEN SODIUM
::
:: Thrones
:::: Ocrilim
:::::: Growing

:: STAGE IBUPROFEN
::
:: Child Abuse
:::: Microwaves
:::::: Plotkin/Wyskida
:::::::: Little Women

[ THE FORMS ]
"The Forms craft wiry, punchy indie pop. The singer's silvery voice soars like the album's namesake. Keep an eye and an ear out." - Pitchfork "The Forms are one of the most exciting, if not one of the best, new acts in indie rock right now. It is unbelievable how many musical ideas they get across." -Popmatters
-- MYSPACE / MP3s

[ GIANT SQUID ]
"The band intertwines folk elements, along with classical composition chops and a strange sense of melody, to its bass-heavy atmospheric doom. This is a band truly deserving of the word "epic," and their tales of seamen gone astray rival anything put out in their concept albums. It's just damned good and I wish I'd found them sooner." - decoymusic.com
-- MYSPACE / MP3s

[ TWO TON BOA ]
"Like a vivid collision-course journey through shadowlands of our fears and neuroses, Two Ton Boa's grinding musical landscape is equally unsettling, captivating and enveloping." - SxSW
-- MYSPACE / MP3s

[ 31 KNOTS ]
31 Knots is on Polyvinyl and make "streamlined indie-prog - but the importance of 31 Knots's rhythm section, the two Jays (Pellicci and Winebrenner), shouldn't be underplayed: Their supple, delicately shifting armature is a vital component of the songs' impact. But the central figure in the band is Joe Haege, who's responsible for the lyrics, vocals, guitars, samples, and piano. It's Haege's voice that first draws you to 31 Knots-- it's a powerful instrument, evoking operatic singers from Jason Molina to Jeff Buckley to Craig Wedren. Haege forgoes the mealy-mouthed style of the day and sings from the diaphragm; his voice is resonant and clear as a bell." - Pitchfork.com
-- MYSPACE / MP3s

[ GRAYCEON ]
"Grayceon is a composite group of sorts. Featuring Max Doyle (guitars) and Zack Farwell (drums) of excellent San Fran thrashers Walken, the band’s lineup is rounded out by one Jackie Perez Gratz on cello and vocals. Gratz is a veteran of long-running Relapse act Amber Asylum as well as a new member of the up-and-coming Giant Squid, not to mention a contributor to albums by the likes of Today is the Day and Neurosis, so you could say she’s something of a genre-buster veteran. It certainly comes out in Grayceon’s songwriting; this trio’s sound is immediately distinct and unusual. Highly recommended." - Metal Review
-- MYSPACE / MP3s

[ THRONES ]
Joe Preston, one time member of MELVINS, and later on HIGH ON FIRE, delivers bonecrushing solo-bass action with miles of bass rig stacks and mounds of pedals. Awesome and awe-inspiring spectacle.
-- SITE / MP3s

[ OCRILIM ]
"Ocrilim is the latest project from legendary guitarist Mick Barr. Admirers of Mick’s previous work with Orthrelm, Octis, and Crom Tech, will recognize his unmistakable sound, a virtuosic welding of metal-guitar expertise with influences as diverse as late-era Coltrane and Master Musicians of Joujouka. But it won’t take long to realize that this shows a new side of Mick Barr. Though still seriously heavy, the songs have a more deliberate compositional component. Themes and variations recur throughout, giving the complexity of Mick’s guitar work a new level of harmonic depth, like an extended suite of string duos. The record ends up sounding like the improbable, awesome child of Beethoven, black metal, and drone-pioneer Giacinto Scelsi." - I and Ear Records
-- MP3s / MYSPACE

[ GROWING ]
Two-piece "enveloping waves of finely wrought feedback and static that tap into the cosmos' universal hum - holy whorls of drones." - Portland Mercury. Growing have records out on Kranky Records, Zum and Animal Disguise, and are soon to release an album on MegaBlade / Troubleman Unlimited. "Reach for an initial word, a label - say Doom Metal - then watch, as the demonic guitars slowly morph into demonstrative bliss. Drone may come a bit closer to the truth, but only slightly, as silence plays an equally significant role in the proceedings. Alas, Growing's anomalous sounds dwell in perpetual nigh-fidelity, permeating the gaps between equalizer settings with evasive intent, frustrating any attempt at optimization, and therefore, classification." - Luke Calzonetti, Child Abuse
-- VIDEO
-- IMAGE

[ CHILD ABUSE ]
Luke Calzonetti plus Oran (x X27, x Cop on Fire) plus bass - keyboards, metaloid effects, screaming, distorted bass destruction, and plodding, hypnotic drum bursts. "Total blissful fast/stacatto jello-sounds for the new punks. CHILD ABUSE place audience members into complete aural convulsion and, at the same time, drench them in their own metaphorical I vomit. How? CHILD ABUSE combine the best of heavy machine gun spurts of atonal tech-metal to confusing off time blurps, growls and howls to 70s mud groove rock improvisations with the spirits of Drumbo and Carl Nielson hovering ominously overhead." Members have had stints in San Francisco mainstays Caroliner Rainbow, Mesh, Murder Murder and NYC's X27." - Luke Calzonetti. Recordings out on Folding Cassettes.
-- MP3s / MYSPACE

[ MICROWAVES ]
"In the anti-tradition of whitebread Bay Area thrash metal, the violent morass of New York no wave, and a familiarity with Ralph Records insanity, Microwaves draws from a palette that is somehow as wide as it seems limited. Kuzy spits tonality-impaired riffs like so much chaff from a surgically calibrated tree shredder. MacGregor processes his fretless bass with all manner of effects, often rendering it as more a bowel-rumbling presence than an instrument. When the two "groove" along to Roman's cyborg clatter, it is more the exception than the norm. The dual vocal attack of MacGregor's narrations from the edge and Kuzy, the detached town crier - seals the deal. Indeed, Microwaves pride themselves in creating a blues-free vacuum in a shot-and-beer milltown rife with 12-bar ponytail-growers." - Microwaves HQ
-- MP3s / MYSPACE

[ PLOTKIN/WYSKIDA ]
"Plotkin & Wyskida are a of stream-of-consciousness invention for guitar and drums. Themes rise, permutate into new themes and then fall into chaos. The dissonance becomes melodic upon further investigation. Rhythms stutter and threaten to solidify, but then refuse. Too dirty to be jazz, yet too free to be rock, their work lies slightly beyond these restrictive terms." - Ars Nova
-- MP3s / MYSPACE

[ LITTLE WOMEN ]
Ben Greenberg-guitar, Darius Jones- Alto saxophone, Jason Nazary- Drum set, Travis Laplante- Tenor saxophone
-- MP3s / MYSPACE