ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: #10 EARTH - ANGELS OF DARKNESS, DEMONS OF LIGHT II

Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II

Last year, I overlooked the first part of this when compiling my end of year lists because I forgot that it came out in 2011. This is only partly an attempt to correct that oversight. Since reemerging with 2005's Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method, Earth have been one of the more interesting bands going. Channeling his proclivity for feedback, drones, and bass into new musical avenues--country, blues, psychedelic rock, free jazz--Dylan Carlson has come a long way from Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars. The culmination of the wandering, patient experimentation that's defined the band's past decade of work, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II deepens the slower-than-slow improvising of the previous installment by lightening up: this is probably the brightest music Carlson's been associated with (though the droning cello throughout keeps anything from threatening to get too major key). Carlson's guitar is mixed way up front, and his playing deserves careful study--if a generation of metalheads could get hip to this rather than generic shredding, the genre would certainly be headed in an interesting direction. For all of Carlson's contemplative playing, an approach that leaves no melodic permutation untested, no variation on a chord unplayed, Adrienne Davies and her drums are a subtly powerful force, providing crucial momentum to music that threatens to stop entirely at any moment, while Lori Goldston and Karl Blau tangle their cello and bass, respectively, around the shapes Carlson's guitar lines make.

As a guitar player (and one who grew up reading the kinds of guitar magazines that put people like Kirk Hammett on the cover), I've found Carlson's growth and development as a player over the last decade or so incredibly interesting, and I have to bring my appreciation of this album back to his work on it. Mostly, it's because I haven't found much guitar playing that excites me over the past few years. Earth, though, is one of the few bands that continues to produce music that interests me in the guitar and its possibilities as an instrument. Carlson's playing is wonderfully business casual throughout: sharp enough to hit a million subtle accents when called for, but otherwise in no rush to be in any particular place or to do any particular thing beyond taking chords and melodies apart and stretching them a mile wide. The Angels of Darkness releases have been particularly impressive because I tend to think of improvised music as challenging (even alienating) in its foregrounding of abrasion and dissonance. Thus, something like Fenn O'Berg or Charalambides can be immensely rewarding, but the music demands concentration; whatever enjoyment you are getting out of the music, you've invested a certain amount of patience and attention to find it. Earth's music on these two albums, and particularly Angels of Darkness II, is not like that. Challenging, yes--and often more so than its near static surface would suggest--but rarely abrasive. This is warm, inviting music, and if it asks for patience, it rewards that patience with slow-motion crescendos that are undeniable and hypnotically enchanting melodies. If you thought the world was ending Friday, you could do worse for a soundtrack.

REVIEW: EARTH - ANGELS OF DARKNESS, DEMONS OF LIGHT II

Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II
Southern Lord, 2012

Pitchfork has Earth's new album, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II, streaming right now. Go check it out if you haven't listened to it yet! A "sequel" of sorts to their excellent 2011 album Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I (which only missed appearing on my Best of 2011 list because I forgot it came out last year--I kept thinking it was a late 2010 release), the music for this album was recorded at the same sessions as the first installment and continues Earth's evolution into something more than the house band to a Cormac McCarthy novel. Of course, they are excellent at exactly the kind of scorched-desert-and-violence vibe of McCarthy's work, as evidenced by Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method (supposedly influenced by Blood Meridian), Hibernaculum, and--to a lesser extent--The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull. Nevertheless, for a band with music as impressionistic and evocative as Earth, a change of scenery is a necessity. The Demons of Light albums offer just that--though the scenery is perhaps not a world away from where they've been. The second installment also joins the first one as having one of the best album covers in recent memory:

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I

At this point Earth's music is so recognizably their own that it seems almost impossible for there to be any sense of surprise when listening, but Dylan Carlson's guitar playing continues to develop in terms of nuance and subtlety and the band's interplay becomes increasingly free and tight as the years go on. In a recent interview with Fact, Carlson talked about the progression from Demons of Light I to Demons of Light II, talking about an:

arc . . . from composed songs like "Old Black" and "Father Midnight" through to completely free [improvisations] like "Angles of Darkness, Demons of Light I"--the second album is a continuation of that title track in that it's all improvised. Also, the looser tracks remind me of Pentangle who had the folk chops combined with the jazz chops of the rhythm section. The whole project has this arc of composed to free; American forms to British forms, and then ends on a wildcard, "Rakehell."

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II is every bit as strong as its predecessor, but while the basic formula for an Earth song hasn't changed here--repetition, impossibly slow tempos, and blues and country riffs expanded and mutated into something else entirely are still the name of the game--the execution has advanced to a new level on the Demons of Light albums, which Carlson calls "an interesting and ongoing quest of sorts." Lori Goldston's cello continues to add an intriguing dimension to the band's sound and serves as an able foil for Carlson's guitar even in its quieter moments. Also, Adrienne Davies drum performance throughout Demons of Light II is a marvel of subtle propulsion and heft, pushing the songs on even as the melody lines spiral out into increasingly abstract shapes. In a song like "The Corascene Dog," Davies doesn't appear to be doing anything, really, but that repeated fill and the shimmer of her cymbals makes sure that even as Carlson ties the chord progression in knots, the track never stops going. Just as vitally, on something like "A Multiplicity of Doors," it's Davies who makes sure that the band hits every one of those crests. Perhaps surprisingly given its improvised nature, everything here has a sense of not just travel, but arrival: at the end of a song some destination has been reached, some void has been crossed. Earth is forceful, purposeful, and at the height of their powers. Though Fairport Convention and Pentangle have been referenced by Carlson as influences on Earth's current sound, I think Lark's Tongue in Aspic/Starless and Bible Black era King Crimson is another apt touchstone (one Carlson confirms here).

What's especially impressive is just how much light is present in Earth's sound these days. They've always been able to conjure up angels of darkness, but they seem just as apt to give the demons of light a turn this time round. Carlson's guitar practically sparkles on drumless opener "Sigil of Brass," miles away from the crush of something like "Seven Angels" from 1993's Earth 2, and when "His Teeth Did Brightly Shine" launches in with a classically Earth guitar line, it's palpably redemptive and stirring (and as pretty as "Miami Morning Coming Down II (Shine)"). Davies, in that interview with Fact, mentions that "Hex seemed to be created by almost 'impersonal' and 'external' forces, each album since then has felt progressively more intimate and personal," and I find this matches the distinct shift I've noticed from something like "The Dry Lake" to the Demons of Light albums. The band sounds like they are in the room with you--the production on their albums since their return has been uniformly fantastic--but the shadings, the lights and shadows, of their songs are more vivid than usual here.

It's been a little over a half-decade since Earth reappeared from almost a decade of silence. With a fan-funded Carlson solo album supposedly in the works and Earth operating increasingly as a collective, it will be fascinating to see where they head. I have to wonder how many miles are left in their current direction--when you've mastered playing slow, where do you go next?--although the move to improvisation seems promising. In the Fact interview, Carlson admits that he "do[es]n't know what exactly will inspire the next Earth album." I hope that that means we're in for another reinvention, even if it's not as radical as the one started on Hex. Given their track record, though, it's hard not to believe wherever they end up will be worth hearing.

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2011: #8 MOGWAI HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE, BUT YOU WILL

Albums of the Year 2011: #8

Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Mogwai have been (and probably always will be) a favourite of mine: five normal guys with terrific senses of humour playing intense (in terms of both sonics and emotions) music. They also hold the distinction of being the band whose album I have paid the most for ($40+tax for an import copy of Young Team), but I won't hold that against them here. Based on what I know about Scotland, it must just ooze melancholy--and I have to admit, as thrilling as "Like Herod," "My Father My King," "Glasgow Mega Snake," and "Batcat" are, it's Mogwai's melancholy that I've found to be their most appealing quality (cf. "Tracy," Come on Die Young, "Stanley Kubrick," "I Chose Horses," and "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead"*). If you're like me, Hardcore delivers in spades, with the excellent "Letters to the Metro" and "Too Raging to Cheers" (in a discography littered with great song titles, this is truly one of the best). It also offers "Death Rays," which is melancholic and the most Mogwai-sounding song here, and, in its very adherence to Mogwai's traditional strengths, points out why the rest of the album (barring "White Noise," a passable but largely anonymous number) is so superior to it: Hardcore is Mogwai poking around in largely forgotten or un(der)explored areas of their sound.

I've written a great deal about Mogwai, my relationship to their music, and my reaction to this album, but it bears repeating: this is the album I needed Mogwai to make without even realizing I wanted it. The Hawk Is Howling has its moments, but I was kind of bored of Mogwai instrumental epics. Hardcore is, starting with "Mexican Grand Prix," a genuine surprise, and a largely pleasant one at that. Even the seeming throwaway "George Square Thatcher Death Party" is more enjoyable than the last album's stab at a radical departure, "The Sun Smells too Loud." Part of the joy is that through the first half of the album, the band offers something like their version of Mogwai-Pop (what is "San Pedro" but "Glasgow Mega Snake" or "Batcat" with the distortion dialed back and the hooks dialed way up?) and it works brilliantly (this is also what makes "Death Rays" such a misstep, in my opinion). Not to be outdone, the back half reminds listeners that very few bands do "sad" quite as prettily as Mogwai do, and then, to continue the embarrassment of riches, outdoes all of those epics on The Hawk Is Howling with their best straight guitar songs since Come on Die Young. "How to be a Werewolf" is everything I fell in love with the first time I heard Mogwai with a truly ecstatic guitar solo as its climax, and "You're Lionel Richie" makes a split EP with Earth (who released a pretty decent album this year, too) seem like the best idea on the planet.** It's unlikely that Hardcore will change anyone's mind about Mogwai, and I can understand why some people would offer rather tepid reviews and write the album off as more of the same, but for me, Hardcore was a minor revelation.

*That comma splice kills me. I love the title and hate it all at the same time (and I am really not a grammar pedant--as a quick read through of this blog will probably make clear).

**"You're Lionel Richie" also offers a pretty great use of movie (?) dialogue, which is a cliche with this kind of music, but that feels earned and that works here.