Neither/Nor Records
Earth Tongues, Ohio (n/n 006)
An ensemble dedicated to exploring the scope and scale of experimental improvised music, Earth Tongues approaches each performance as a chance to build new, engaging work that questions our relationship to music and our understanding of sound. Consisting of Carlo Costa on percussion, Joe Moffett on trumpet, and Dan Peck on tuba, the trio creates immersive pieces that explore dynamic and temporal extremes.
Ohio, Earth Tongues’ second release on Neither/Nor Records, is their most ambitious work to date. A long-form piece that stretches the very fabric of improvised music to the limit, Ohio envelopes the listener with intensely quiet textures, glacial build-ups and surprising, thunderous moments of noise. It is a double-album inspired by the sonic extremes found in the natural and industrial worlds, and an ode to the inescapably human desire to come to terms with those worlds.
Personnel:
Joe Moffett - trumpet, cassette player
Dan Peck - tuba, cassette player
Carlo Costa - percussion
Recorded by Nathaniel Morgan at 8550 Ohio, Chesterhill, OH on July 18, 2015. Mixed by Nathaniel Morgan. Mastered by Jim Clouse. All music by Earth Tongues. Artwork by Brooke Herr. Design by Carlo Costa.
Release date: October 14, 2016
Press
“Ohio serves as both a reaction to and an embodiment of the boundlessness of free improvisation: in its restraint, endurance, focus, and discipline it simultaneously rejects the excesses that freedom affords and opens up the sort of immense expanse where just about anything might be encountered.” (March 20, 2017)
“Cette musique libre et indomptable n'a pas besoin d'être rageuse. L'Ohio du trio n'est pas une indication géographique naturaliste, ce n'est pas une description de l'Etat rural. C'est simplement le lieu ou a été enregistré ce disque abrupt mais fascinant. Cette musique, elle, pourrait être de partout où le vivant à sa place.
Une belle exploration.” (January 19, 2017)
Selected as a Top 10 Jazz Albums of 2016: “This is for all the Morton Feldman heads out there. 90 minutes, improvised, glacial. A bit like The Necks, but develops even more slowly, with more space. For those with the patience (and the time), Ohio has a big payoff. (December 19, 2016)
“Earth Tongues doesn’t just improvise in the standard terms; they’ve developed their own intuitive rule system and “language.” Texture, color, and interplay are usually the key components in freely-improvised music, but this slow-moving beast of a combo goes heavier and deeper than surface aesthetics. Together, they create harrowing environments where sounds emerge from silence—colliding, disintegrating, and wriggling in unexpected directions. The music hovers more than it moves, a lumbering, low-impact, largely unpitched din constructed of minimalist gestures, extended technique flurries, and multiple varieties of friction. The two-part work, clocking in at 94 minutes, requires a certain degree of patience, if not total submission.
More often, though, the performances breathe patiently, murmuring like metallic cicadas, elongated bird calls, and distant wolf howls. Earth Tongues maintains this sound world over the long haul, delivering ever-shifting details and fleeting drama that keep the attentive listener riveted. Given the right listener and environment, this is a record that could be downright transportative.” (December 14, 2016)
Honorable mention in “The best 10 experimental albums of 2016”. (December 14, 2016)
“タンズを名乗る3人の音楽家が奏でるのは、歓喜も苦悩も悲哀もすべて含有する大気もしくは大洋のような豊穣な物音ノイズの潮流であった。例えばブライアン・イーノの『Discreet Music（慎み深い音楽）』と、トニー・コンラッドの『Outside the Dream Syndicate（夢組織外）』のどちらに近いか、と問われれば『慎み深い夢の外の音楽組織』と答える。乃ち外からは自己主張が希薄に見えてもは、内側に入り込んだ途端に窒息しそうなほど濃厚な自我の絡み合いに仰天すること請け合いである。ＣＤ2枚組で各1トラック、つまり一度プレイボタンを押すたが最後、聴き通すことでしか完結しない音楽劇なのである。前後左右から聴こえる楽器の判別がつかない奇怪な音響に惑わされることなく、アンサンブル（そんな概念がこの文脈で意味があるかどうかは別として）の妙に酩酊しつつ無意識の旅路をしっかり意識して反芻するのが正しい聴き方であり、無意識の底から生れる奈落の獣の胎児と直接対峙せずに退治する対人的退陣策の裏ワザである。無意識を意識する体験したことない経験への敬虔な招待状がここにある。”(December 13, 2016)
“Earth Tongues es un ensamble abocado a la exploración de nuevos territorios en la música experimental improvisada que alinea a tres de los más conspicuos representantes de la escena creativa de este milenio: Carlo Costa, Joe Moffett y Dan Peck. (...) Este álbum doble se inspira en los extremos sonoros provenientes de la naturaleza y el mundo industrial para aspirar a la construcción de una especie de oda al ineludible deseo humano por compatibilizar ambos universos.” (October 15, 2016)