Full Earth Premiere “Echo Tears”; Cloud Sculptors Out March 15
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on February 7th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Norwegian progressive instrumentalists Full Earth will make their full-length debut with the 2LP Cloud Scuptors on March 15. The Oslo-based outfit release through respected purveyor Stickman Records, which makes them labelmates to Elder, Iron Jinn and King Buffalo — Stickman is also the ancestral home of Norwegian prog dispensers Motorpsycho, which will be relevant shortly — and like each of those outfits, Full Earth have their own take on a progressive heavy ideology. To call it expansive is to say the least of it.
There’s been a palpable buzz around Full Earth, and reasonably so. With the three members of Kanaan all involved — guitarist Ask Vatn Strøm, bassist Eskild Myrvoll, and drummer/project spearhead Ingvald André Vassbø — alongside bassist Simen Wie and organist/synthesist Øystein Aadland, the five-piece seemed to be immediately embraced as part of that band’s ongoing momentum. Before a song was released, let alone word of Cloud Sculptors or more details about the project’s prog-honoring, sometimes-longform, deeply methodical approach, the band were popping up on festival bills for Spring 2024, and indeed, they’ll be at Desertfest in Oslo and Berlin as well as Roadburn, with Freak Valley in Germany this June and Down the Hill in Belgium in August and probably tours hither and yon as well.
The actual arrival of the album, then, is anticipated. Full Earth meet that electric undercurrent with a massive glut of headspinning prog and other atmospheric and purposeful explorations. The bulk of Cloud Sculptors‘ feature-length 85 minute runtime resides in its most extended pieces: opener “Full Earth Pt. I – Emanation” and the title-track for a 40-minute one-two pairing at the start of the record. This initial impression, the runs of keyboard notes alongside sustained distortion and feedback around 14 minutes into the leadoff, or the bounce of organ that sweetly starts “Cloud Sculptors” hinting at some of the vintage-synthery both of the largely-melancholy-in-the-Lake-era-King-Crimson-tradition “The Collective Unconscious” (18:37) and the exploratory “Echo Tears,” which premieres below.
You would be hard-pressed to find someone less qualified than I to discuss the work of Daniel Lopatin or probably any number of the other krautrock and classic prog influences under which Full Earth are operating, but what you really need to know in listening to the album is everything’s under control. Yeah, Full Earth are kind of doing for krautrock and the headier end of kosmiche what Earthless did for classic heavy in cherrypicking stylistic aspects and blowing them out to epic proportion while staying conscious enough to actually guide the listener. But it’s that last part that’s the most important, because what most affects the listening experience is the skill with which Full Earth execute these pieces.
I won’t pretend that “Full Earth Pt. I – Emanation” or its closing counterpart “Full Earth PT. II – Disintegration,” “The Collective Unconscious” or “Cloud Sculptors” itself aren’t overwhelming. They absolutely are and I think that’s the point; operating under the “put it out now and let them spend the next six years picking it apart” ethic, and indeed Cloud Sculptors might be densely packed enough at its most intense to provide fodder for a long-term deep-dive (if they do more records, I expect the phrase “long term deep dive” to come up again as a summation of their career arc), while remaining dynamic in the starts-peaceful “Full Earth Pt. II – Disintegration” and “Weltgeist,” which makes me want to put on a lounge jacket and make a documentary about space with all the latest science 1976 has to offer, speaking in clear, Saganian tones about the mysteries of the universe while Full Earth remind that at its heart all of the cosmos is math.
It is rare that a debut album comes with such a sense of mastery, and Cloud Sculptors has purpose to match. Each song, each change, a little swap in the drums or on keys in that all-in immersive rollout at the start, is in its place and keyed to bring as much to the proceedings as possible. They’re willing to reside in parts, as a band with 20-minute songs had better be, but cognizant of the listener’s place in and interaction with the material. Songs unfold in movements, ideas fluidly melding with graceful performances, a marked heft in reserve for when it’s needed, and guide the listener through Cloud Sculptors‘ otherwise staggeringly complex path. They might be pairing the half-time drums and what sounds like double-time guitar on “The Collective Unconscious” or making aural references that at very least I’ll probably never get, but you can also put on the album and Full Earth, through the music itself, act as a guide to get you safely from one end to the other. So while it’s a lot to take on, you can also roll with it as Full Earth quickly earn a trust that can’t be faked.
In talking about “Echo Tears” under the player below, Vassbø talks about using instruments “to their full extent.” That’s a classic prog phrase and mentality. He’s pushing himself and the instrument(s) as part of the same drive, trying to “get as much out” of the drums, organ, whatever it might be. Keep that in mind as you listen to “Echo Tears,” which is drumless and comparatively minimal next to “The Collective Unconscious” before or “Full Earth Pt. II – Disintegration” after. Because it doesn’t just have to mean playing fast, or making a part as busy as it can be, but utilizing a given instrument as a tool of emotive expression or sonic exploration, as seems to be the case with this track. And no, “Echo Tears” doesn’t represent the whole crux of Cloud Sculptors‘ 85 minutes — how could it? — in terms of basic sound, but as you listen to the track, know that Full Earth‘s ability to carry the listener through its atmospheric contemplations absolutely does.
The potential here is vast, and it’s difficult not to think of what Full Earth might accomplish in the future based on their achievements here, but worth staying in the moment as you listen.
As always, I hope you enjoy:
Full Earth, “Echo Tears’ track premiere
Echo Tears is the second single from the up and coming experimental rock band Full Earth’s debut album, Cloud Sculptors. Album preorders launch Feb. 9 via www.stickman-records.com.
The tune is one out of two shorter organ-compositions from the album that are more inspired by electronic and modernist classical music. The song is an echo-jam for Full Earth’s combo-organs in the style of Oneohtrix Point Never’s early releases, and an attempt to adapt this cosmic style for fluttery organs. The French band Heldon and Laurie Spiegels Expanding Universe are two other important references. The organ-arpeggios, recorded by Øystein Aadland and Ingvald Vassbø in their rehearsal space, feels like they are levitating and circling freely in the air. One goes into a trance and the insisting and repetitive music grows continuously. In a mechanical but analog way, always towards an ecstatic vision. Echo Tears is exploring another edge of the Full Earth-universe than the band’s first single Cloud Sculptors did, and shows how wide and multicoloured the bands’ pallet at times can be.
Says Ingvald Vassbø: «A few years ago, I was totally in love with the early and cosmic synth-works of Daniel Lopatin, and listened to it almost every night before going to sleep. It was a really fun process to let myself be inspired by that music, make some kind of echo-jam in that vein and record it together with Øystein in our rehearsal space. We got really inspired, and I really feel that we managed to utilize our instruments, my Terry Riley-organ, Øystein’s Farfisa and our tape-echo to their full extent.»
Cloud Sculptors tracklisting:
1. Full Earth Pt. I – Emanation (21:06)
2. Cloud Sculptors (20:05)
3. Weltgeist (6:08)
4. The Collective Unconscious (18:37)
5. Echo Tears (5:36)
6. Full Earth Pt. II – Disintegration (13:46)
The fantastic “Echo Tears” artwork is made by Sunniva Hårstad
Pre save: https://bfan.link/echo-tears
Full Earth live:
18.04 – @rare_guitar Münster 🇩🇪
19.04 – Magazine 4 Brüssel 🇧🇪
20.04 – @roadburnfest , Tilburg 🇳🇱
22.04 – @le3pieces , Rouen 🇫🇷
23.04 – @linternational_paris Paris 🇫🇷
24.04 – Venue tbc, Köln 🇩🇪
25.04 – @trauma_marburg Marburg 🇩🇪
26.04 – Freaques de la Musique, Bremen 🇩🇪
27.04 – @husetkbh , København 🇩🇰
10.05 – @sonic_whip , Nijmegen 🇳🇱
11.05 – @desertfest_oslo 🇳🇴
23.05 – @gjovikkinoogscene 🇳🇴
24.05 – @lokal.trhm , Trondheim 🇳🇴
26.05 – @desertfest_berlin 🇩🇪
29.05 – Blauer Salon/Hausbar, Tübingen 🇩🇪
30.05 – @freakvalleyfestival Netphen 🇩🇪
30.05 – Posten, Odense 🇩🇰
31.05 – @esbjerg_fuzztival l 🇩🇰
31.08 – @downthehillfestival Rilaar 🇧🇪
Full Earth are:
Øystein Aadland – farfisa organ, yamaha yc30 organ, mellotron, synthesizer
Ask Vatn Strøm – guitars
Simen Wie – electric bass, additional guitar
Eskild Myrvoll – additional guitar, korg MS-20 synthesizer, noise
Ingvald Vassbø – drums, yamaha yc30 organ
