Ex-Easer Island Head - Norther
Ex-Easer Island Head, a band we have been huge fans of for many years, are releasing 'Norther' – their first album since 2016 on Rocket Recordings.
Watch the Tommy Husband made video for the album's title track here:
This is what the band have to say about the shimmering beauty of this first single: "'Norther' makes a determined line for the horizon on a piece that finds them somewhere between Arnold Dreyblatt's Orchestra of Excited Strings and the shimmering minimalism of Kompakt records. Two guitars with their frets pulled off and with brass rods inserted beneath the strings create a chorusing, chiming lattice of alternately muted and unmuted strings, propelled forward by an insistent two note motif, pulsing kick drum and sliding slabs of downtuned bass. Bowed strings at the mid section give way to an eerie soaring melody from a wind-driven Aeolian harp before the band kicks back in with driving, hypnotic percussion."
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 Bandcamp, or from your local record shop.
