Drone-Inventors Earth are pioneers of a distinctive sound that continues to bloom; with each new studio album, they evolve. Openness to and experimentation with sound and instrumentation ensure Earth’s ability to remain consistently interesting and undoubtedly unique.
The second half of Seattle drone icons Earth’s Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light is being prepared for release on Southern Lord Records in North America this February 14th on CD, LP and digital download formats.
Recorded in the same two week session as 2011’s lauded Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I by Stuart Hallerman at Avast and mastered by Mell Detmer, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II carries on in the freely and folkloric vein of the last release and invokes even more improvisational and unrestrained energy than its predecessor.
Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II veers further into an entirely other direction, recalling sounds of the great British Acid Folk generation. This new material brings forth some highly original and deeply mesmerizing tones throughout, at times more hopeful and less dark and death oriented than previous work. Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II is ultimately a completely unanticipated direction for Earth, and a very welcome one at that.
Phil Elverum is Mount Eerie. The 33 year-old multi-instrumentalist has played in other bands, and worked as a producer, but remains best known for this solo project, which began under the name the Microphones in 1997. In 2003, he renamed the project Mount Eerie (and added an “e” to his last name, Elvrum) after returning from a trip to Norway, where he lived alone in a remote cabin for a winter. “Mount Eerie” specifically refers to the mountain on Fidalgo Island, an island an hour and change north of Seattle where you’ll also find Elverum’s lifelong Anacortes, Washington hometown.
His work can be delicately spare or booming and ambitiously layered and noisy, often in the same song. Lyrically, he focuses on memory, first-person storytelling, myth, naturalism, the everyday as sacred, and a sense of place (in and out of Washington State), among other related things. In addition to his extravagantly packaged albums, Elverum has released self-published books (which he illustrates or fills with his photographs) via his own label, P.W. Elverum & Sun, Ltd.
Geneviève Castrée was born in Québec in 1981.
She says:
“I started Ô Paon at home in 2007. I felt the need to start something new, to work harder. The songs of Ô Paon are often born out of frustration, events happen in front of me and I make my comments. I make stuff up, I create scenes. I fuck around a little bit because it’s important to forget to take yourself seriously sometimes. Ô Paon has sung a little bit everywhere: in Canada, in the United States, in Europe, in Japan, in Australia and in New Zealand. It was great. There will be more occasions for me to show myself in the near future.
I choose to write and sing my songs in French, my mother tongue. People often tell me I have a weird accent. I don’t know what to say about that. I sing the way it comes out. I am a well-traveled French-speaker.
I like recording by myself in my house. Clumsiness can become magic. For Courses, my first full length, I surrounded myself with people who really know music and how to play it. I went into a real studio. It was worth it.”
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