Another Earth

It is hard to look at the oeuvre of Seattle band Earth without splitting their output into two distinct halves. When Dylan Carlson began in 1989, his vision was steeped in providing a stark framework for heavily distorted drone, steeped in repetition and minimalism, and it brutality generated a feverish following with a multitude of like-minded acts springing up in its wake. By 1997 the band went silent due to various fractious issues, namely legal and drug issues, but in 2005 Earth resurfaced as an entirely reborn act. Whilst the elongated drone aesthetic remains, the palette has been markedly widened to include percussion and strings and influences that range from Ennio Morricone to pastoral rock and English paganism. Whilst it proved a divisive tangent for some of the die-hards, the strength of the band continues to grow.

The latest Earth experiment has been the release of two albums under the overarching moniker of Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light, an ambitious endeavour that most bands would be crucified for even considering. Then again, most bands aren't Earth… “No, I guess they're not,” Carlson chuckles. “It actually wasn't planned; we had all these ideas down for one album, but things kind of spilled forth. I wasn't sure whether there would be another time to do it, and we couldn't help ourselves really.”

The demure remark belies Carlson's battle with liver disease, the after-effects of prolonged drug abuse. The ailment is “for now” under control, yet the last-gasp attitude it brought on Carlson ironically breathed life into the band, whereby they went through the most productive session of the band's storied career. “It was really such an active time in the studio,” drummer Adrienne Davies continues.

“We only had two weeks to put down these songs, and pretty much the first week went into the first album and the second week went into the second album; it was that fast, a lot of first takes. The first album was a lot more composed and we knew what we were doing with it even before we went into the studio, and we worked so fast that we had all this extra time that was all paid for, so we dusted off some ideas, rolled tape and played. There wasn't much in the way of overdubs, we kept it as experimental, free, improvised stuff. With the exception of Multiplicity Of Doors every song was created on the spot.”

Such disparate techniques could have created two works that were jarringly different, yet both Angels Of Darkness… albums truly inform on one another, offering variants of the same thematic wavelength. The second album has a rawness that is inevitable for a one-take, overdub-light recording, yet it also feels like a shedding of the skin; a rebirth that comes out of the process of the first album. Furthermore, the admittance to improvisation is a marked departure to Carlson's previous modus operandi of meticulous orchestration and composition.

“Everything since I joined the band, whether it is Hex… or The Bees Made Honey… was extremely thought out with intricate layers upon layers, and the drums and percussion had to be stripped to the bone, very in their place and never varying from it,” Davies explains. “Everything was spaced so that every other instrument fit in. This time the drums became more of a focal point; it was allowed to contribute to the structure of the song much more freely rather than filling in the gaps between.

“One thing that we do that I think is underrated in people's view of us is that we like the silences, we like the notes that stretch out, we like the way there is a lot of open space. When the cello plays you can hear and feel every string, and the fretboard is very textual,” Davies furthers. “The silence is another part of the band; the pregnant pauses, they bring to light the notes that we don't play. With these musicians with such creativity you want to let stuff happen, but at the same time it's as much about restraining yourself too. We don't play math rock; we play a melody you think you have heard before, like a lullaby that holds throughout time, or the humming of a refrigerator. It's inherently familiar, yet hidden within any entirely foreign structure.”

It is this immediate connection with the two albums that seems the most incongruous element, the idea that such a sprawling work can grab the listener from the opening chords rather than taking time to sink in. Davies believes the key lies in their faith in each other and in letting the music guide them, rather than the other way around. “I think that anyone who intentionally tries to compose minimalist music, or just to be specifically attempting to be experimental, whether it be through metal or pop, are limiting themselves by setting all these rules and restrictions that you can never step out of,” Davies states.

“We don't go in with expectations, we try to let it be very expressive and organic, and the music will do what it needs to. There is no point throwing the kitchen sink at it. It's best [when playing drums] to keep everything simple and straightforward, adding little flourishes here and there when it needs to, but nothing that detracts from the song itself, and it will grow.”

The tangential shift between each album has become a staple of Earth's aesthetic moreover than their status as a drone band. The band seem to find these fluctuations and movements within their integral sound to be the driving creative force – yet Carlson has changed his views on revisiting previous terrain, believing that by finding the strength to restrain oneself, to search for the sparsity and rawness of any given melody, it provides a wholly innovative experience.

“Each album is a separate entity; it's at a time, and I'm a different person in a different studio, marking a precise moment in time. People are starting to say to me 'Whoa, the twentieth anniversary of Earth 2 is coming, do you want to play it?', and there was a time when I wouldn't have, because it was done. I'm still wrestling with what to do right now – is it a retro thing? All of that stuff, bands getting back together to play an album, seems weird to me. But I wouldn't capture that sound, because I have done so many different things and I don't focus on that fetishized sound anymore. It would sound entirely different, entirely new, and that is Earth, I guess.”

Earth will play the following shows:

Sunday 9 September – The Zoo, Brisbane QLD
Thursday 13 September – The Hi-Fi, Sydney NSW
Friday 14 September – Fowlers Live, Adelaide SA
Saturday 15 September – The Rosemount Hotel, Perth WA
Sunday 16 September – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC