Ex Easter Island Head - Magnetic Language
"You must see this group. They are minimalist noise art but come on like entertainment. Absolutely captivating, classy, beautiful and sublime. No-one could fail to think this was amazing and brilliant." Stewart Lee
On 17th May, Ex Easter Island Head are releasing a new album, their first for Rocket called 'Norther'.
Watch the John O'Carroll made video for the second track to be revealed from the album, the hypnotic repetitions of 'Magnetic Language'.
This is what the band say about this track:
"Voices played back through phone speakers and amplified by guitar pickups create an emotive cut-up mosaic of breath and cascading harmonics. Melodic lines captured by the contemporary technology of the voice note and broadcast through the near-antique technology of the dual-coil guitar pickup. An ecstatic chorale of electromagnetic signals and gleaming tones."
Building on over a decade of activity, Ex-Easter Island Head have long been a cherished part of the UK underground. Functioning variously as a kind of deconstructed rock band, ambient chamber ensemble and minimalist compositional workshop, on 'Norther' we find the group combining their wide musical experience into something singular and coherent with a deeply emotional core.
Largely orbiting around their extended use of the electric guitar, their approach might at times recall the experiments of Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca, but across the album we see a band whose musical vision extends well beyond the iconoclasm of 80's New York. Drawing on hypnotic musics from across the spectrum, they bring a compositional approach to sounds often associated with freeform sprawl or more academic settings, never letting pathos be lost to process. Equally reminiscent of the gentle rolling momentum of The Necks as they are the coiled precision of an act on Kompakt; this is a music which ebbs and flows, lives and breathes.
Watch Ex-Easter Island Head's mesmerising live show here:
17 May / Bristol / Cube Microplex
18 May / London / Stoke Newington Old Church (Matinee and Evening)
24 May / Manchester / St. Michael's
25 May / Sheffield / Sidney and Matilda
31 May / Hebden / Hebden Bridge Trades Club
07 June / Brighton / The Hope
08 June / Cambridge / Storey's Field Centre
'Norther' is being released on 17 May, but you can preorder now on ltd edition vinyl via this Bandcamp, or from your local record shop.
