Is the world ready for Carlton Melton‘s second full-length of 2023? Almost certainly not. I feel like humanity has barely scratched the surface of this February’s Resemble Ensemble (review here), and even with about two months to prepare for Turn to Earth, who knows what might be in store from the out-there-out-there NorCal psych rockers? Could be jams for sure.

They’ve got two songs posted with a bit of a visualizer/video that works in stages and gets a little headachy with some vibrating imagery later on, but if you emerge from the other side of “Cloudstorming” — which is track two on Turn to Earth, after the droney titular intro — without the word “burner” on your lips, I’d be interested to know what distracted you during the 13 minutes while the song was playing. For me? Laundry. But after I threw the wash in the dryer and came back up from the basement, the four-piece — whose Rich Millman also plays in Desslok, who premiered a video today by fun coincidence — proceeded to melt down that throb in my head that tells me I need to be somewhere and couchlock my ass for the duration. Perhaps, your own laundry almost certainly done already, you might otherwise have a similar experience.

These guys have a reputation at least in my mind for delivering, and I expect no less when Turn to Earth shows up, ready or not. If you’re in the UK or EU, you’ll want to peruse the tour dates below as well to see if they’re coming nearby. For sure a band I wouldn’t mind seeing.

From the PR wire:

Announcing new CARLTON MELTON album Turn To Earth on Agitated Records

Share album’s first two tracks ‘Turn To Earth/Cloudstorming’ with accompanying video

Northern California psychedelic sorcerers Carlton Melton are brain surfers, mind trippers, …”psychlists,” if you prefer. The band will take your head for a ride, occasionally rushing at superluminal speeds through a wormhole or gliding softly on a gentle breeze in a leafy glade. Sometimes your brain needs to rage, and sometimes it needs to repose.

For a decade and a half, the band has yo-yo’ed, almost schizophrenically, between these two modes: walloping space jams with furious guitar solos in one hemisphere of the brain and ethereal, feather-light splashdowns in the other. Not to mention a track here and there that builds from the latter into the former.

But with two new releases in 2023, the band has evolved. Whether psych rock or ambient trance, their sound remains driving, organic, and flowing. With the addition of Anthony Taibi (White Manna, DDT), however, the group’s metal freak-outs are Hawkwindier and their droning kraut trances are Spacemen 3-er. In January, the quartet released the playfully spacey Resemble Ensemble, recorded in Taibi’s home studio 3D Light. October now sees the band Turn To Earth, a work with scents of Autumn, a season of death and transition. The cover art evokes a vine-covered, electric crucifix. The sound is, well, earthy but also gritty and striving towards change. The album was recorded in Fall 2022 and now harvested in Fall 2023.

CARLTON MELTON
TURN TO EARTH
AGITATED RECORDS
Release date: 6th October 2023 (2LP/CD/DL)

Tracklist
01. Turn To Earth
02. Cloudstorming
03. Vanquished
04. Cosmicity
05. Canned Head
06. Sundering
07. Unlock The Land
08. Roboflow
09. Last Times
10. Migration
11. Mutiny

Phil Becker (Terry Gross, Pins Of Light) contributed drums and percussion to a few tracks on Turn To Earth, recording the album at El Studio in San Francisco. With Becker at the helm, the synths have become more prominent (“Cosmicity,” “Roboflow,” “Migration”) and the tone heavier on the doom (“Cloudstorming,” “Unlock The Land,” title track): several moments could even serve as background music for epic dark fantasy films like Conan the Barbarian, Fire and Ice, or Heavy Metal.

As exquisite as Turn To Earth is, Melton are best appreciated as a live act: their recordings as well as their gigs are largely improvised – not so much composed as birthed. And yet their most recent tour ended abruptly and perilously. The group had to cancel its final three shows once members were admitted to Arnhem hospital in the Netherlands. Five years later, reinforcements have strengthened the band and restocked its arsenal of great tracks.

After the rockus interruptus of that 2018 tour and the tantric tease of the intervening Covid lockdown, Melton have some unfinished business. An October 2023 tour is poised to set the freshly minted quartet back onto the stages of Europe and within the cerebral folds of its fans.

Turn To Earth, sure … but keep your head in outer space.

CARLTON MELTON UK/EU 2023 TOUR
Oct 11 – GHENT, BE – @ Kinky Bar
Oct 12 – LONDON, UK – @ Strongroom Bar w/ Black Helium and Psychic Lemon
Oct 13 – GLASTONBURY, UK – @ King Arthur
Oct 14 – HEBDEN BRIDGE, UK @ The Trades Club w/ Dead Sea Apes
Oct 15 – GLASGOW, UK @ Ivory Blacks TBA
Oct 17 – SALISBURY, UK @ The Winchester Gate
Oct 18 – BRISTOL, UK @ Crofter Rights
Oct 19 – MARGATE, UK @ Bar Nothing
Oct 20 – ANTWERP, BE @ Trix Desert Fest
Oct 21 – AMIENS, FR @ TBA
Oct 23 – ANNAY LE CHATEAU, FR @ Bristrot Culture
Oct 24 – ROUEN , FR @ Le 3 Pieces
Oct 26 – ZWOLLE, NL @ Hedon w/ The Warlocks
Oct 27 – AMSTERDAM, NL @ OCCII w/ Sex Swing
Oct 29 – PARIS, FR @ La Maroquinerie e w/ The Warlocks

Carlton Melton is: andy duvall – drums/gtr; clint golden – bass; rich millman – gtr/synth; and anthony taibi – synth/gtr.

https://www.facebook.com/Carlton-Melton-band-page-142609689122268/
https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/
http://www.carltonmeltonmusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AGITATEDRECORDS/
https://instagram.com/agitated_records
http://agitatedrecords.com/

Carlton Melton, “Turn to Earth/Cloudstorming” official video

Tags: Agitated Records, California, Carlton Melton, Carlton Melton Turn to Earth, Turn to Earth

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 8th, 2023 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Whathaveyou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.