Here Lies Man to Release No Ground to Walk Upon Aug. 16
Here Lies Man are officially — I’m sure there was a ceremony somewhere, someplace — a better band than people know. The thing about that? People know they’re pretty good. But go ahead and dig into “Clad in Silver,” which is the lead track from their new mini-LP No Ground to Walk Upon, and tell me that’s not some of the coolest shit going. I mean, I know they’re not the only ones out there taking cues from Afrobeat, but after two full-lengths and a couple other odds and ends, some touring, etc., they’ve got it down. Listen to that fuzz. Those keys. That percussion. That drone head-trip freakout. It’s all right there. It’s so specific a sonic niche, and so much their own, that I have to wonder if part of why they’re underrated isn’t because of the complexity involved, but either way, you’ve got four minutes — if you’re reading this, face it, you do — so yeah, just listen to the track. It’s down there at the bottom.
No Ground to Walk Upon is out Aug. 16 through RidingEasy Records.
The PR wire makes it true:
Here Lies Man announce new mini-album No Ground to Walk Upon, share first single
Los Angeles quartet Here Lies Man share the lead single from their forthcoming 7-song mini-album No Ground To Walk Upon today. Hear and share “Clad in Silver” via YouTube and Bandcamp.
Here Lies Man took the music world by storm in 2017 with their self-titled debut positing the intriguing hypothesis: What if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat?
Since that time, Here Lies Man has expanded and expounded upon their sound and ideas of heavy riff rock and psych within the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave. The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly over the past 2 years, while also releasing a second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both in 2018.
No Ground to Walk Upon is due worldwide in August 2019. It continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. The lead single “Clad in Silver” is the soundtrack snippet of a journey to the imaginary place called home, which can never be arrived at. With every step, the character imagines getting closer, but it is a hallucination that fades in and out of perception.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” explains founder and vocalist/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Marcos Garcia (who also plays guitar in Antibalas) of the band’s sound. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
No Ground To Walk Upon also includes an interesting conceptual mathematics to the entire proceedings, a theme begun on the prior album. “There are interludes between each song that are 2/3 to 3/4 of the tempo of the previous song,” Garcia says. “The reason it breaks down to 2 over 3 or 3 over 4 is that everything in the music rhythmically corresponds to a set of mathematical algorithms known as the clave. The clave is an ancient organizing rhythmic principle developed in Africa.”
Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) recorded the mini-album much like they did their previous releases, at their own L.A. studio on a Tascam 388 8-track tape machine. Additional layers were recorded with former Antibalas keyboardist Victor Axelrod and other contributors in various other locations, all while the band continued its rigorous touring schedule.
Here Lies Man has already spent much of the past three years on tour, with dates supporting Antibalas, Earthless and Fu Manchu, as well as headlining treks through the EU & UK. The remaining months of 2019 and 2020 will see the band once again performing at numerous International festivals (including Austin’s Levitation Fest in November.)
No Ground to Walk Upon will be available on LP, CD and download on August 16th, 2019 via RidingEasy Records.
Tracklisting:
01. Clad in Silver
02. Swinging From Trees
03. Long Legs (Look Away)
04. Washing Bones
05. Get Ahold of Yourself
06. Iron Rattles
07. Man Falls Down
HERE LIES MAN LIVE 2019:
11/09 Austin, TX @ Levitation Fest 2019
hereliesman.com
facebook.com/hereliesman
hereliesman.bandcamp.com
ridingeasyrecs.com
