Ten East, Skyline Pressure: Benefits of Happenstance
Posted in Reviews on November 3rd, 2016 by JJ Koczan
It happened one day in the Netherlands. Actually it was a night. And Yawning Man were getting ready to play the 2014 edition of Mañana Mañana Fest, but guitarist Gary Arce and drummer Bill Stinson found themselves in need of a bassist. Well, it just so happened that Erik Harbers, one of the festival’s organizers, plays bass in Automatic Sam, so he and co-organizer/guitarist Pieter Holkenborg stepped in to fill the spot. They’d never played together, let alone on stage in front of a fest crowd. But it worked, and one can rightly think of Ten East‘s Skyline Pressure as an outgrowth of that experience.
Bringing the same four parties back — Arce, Stinson, Harbers and Holkenborg — to record in a studio setting with Harper Hug at Thunder Underground, the attempt is capture the same kind of spontaneous chemistry that they wound up showing that night two years ago. The result? Eight tracks and a sprawling 58 minutes marked out by two particularly extended pieces in opener “Daisy Cutter” (13:03) and the later “Sonars and Myths” (14:33) that very much have their root in what Yawning Man do in their desert-defining instrumental soundscaping atmospherics, but arrive somewhat beefed up thanks to the second guitar and a fervent rhythmic push from Stinson and Harbers in the rhythm section.
It’s worth noting that in addition to having taken part in the recently-issued Fatso Jetson collaboration with France’s Hifiklub (review here), this is the third full-length, in three separate outfits, Arce has appeared this year, between Zun‘s Burial Sunrise (on Small Stone; review here) and Yawning Man‘s Historical Graffiti (on Lay Bare; review here), marking the continuation of what might just be his most productive year ever in terms of output.
Not bad for someone who’s been helping shape the scope of desert rock for the better part of the last 30 years. Of those other offerings, Skyline Pressure is probably best compared to the Fatso Jetson/Hifiklub release, since Hifiklub guitarist Nico Morcillo sits in here for side A’s “Planet Blues,” the penultimate serenity of “Stalactite Dip” and closer “Tangled Forest.” But just about anything Arce does is going to be measured in terms of Yawning Man, and that seems all the more fair since Skyline Pressure shares Historical Graffiti‘s title-track, thereby providing a direct line from one offering to the other.
Moreover, it gives a genuine opportunity to examine some of the differences. Ten East, for whom this is their third full-length and first since 2008’s The Robot’s Guide to Freedom, on which Arce and Stinson were joined by Scott Reeder, Greg Ginn, Mario Lalli, etc., is a different project than Yawning Man. That is quickly established on Skyline Pressure and reinforced throughout.
Even as songs like “Eye Soar” or the title-track or the highlight dream-jazz of “Sonars and Myths” veer into otherworldly ambience led my Arce‘s inimitable tone, Ten East remain prone to a more weighted thrust and a heavier undercurrent. Part of that is Harbers‘ personality as a bassist, and part of it is Holkenborg on second guitar — not to mention Morcillo on third — but these factors come together to make it clearer why Skyline Pressure would end up a Ten East record and not a Yawning Man record. However recognizable their origins, quite simply, they’re a different band. It’s true from “Daisy Cutter” — which also has its origins in Yawning Man — onward.
Actually, the initial thrust of “Daisy Cutter” goes a long way in defining Skyline Pressure as a whole, and though the album seems to open to broader terrain especially as it shifts into the back half of the tracklist, with the title-cut, “Sonars and Myths,” and “Stalactite Dip” setting up a bookend return to push in “Tangled Forest,” the places Ten East go are measured in part by from where they came.
“Daisy Cutter” has a wash as those familiar with Arce‘s work might expect, but remains forceful for the bulk of its 13 minutes and finishes noisy, and though the subsequent “Eye Soar” is more soothing, the effect of the opener resonates through it and through “Historical Graffiti”‘s shifts in volume and ending build. I’d say the same applies to “Sonars and Myths,” though the later extended track emphasizes the other side of what Skyline Pressure accomplishes in its fluidity and patience, also grown out of Yawning Man‘s core approach but keyed into a particular joy for experimentation that distinguishes it outright. Both are worth bringing forward at one point or another, and ultimately, both play into Skyline Pressure‘s success in following up what proved so special about that Yawning Man set in the Netherlands.
Whether or not Ten East will continue this collaboration in this form, I don’t know. One still waits for a second Yawning Sons album, and Ten East‘s lineup has always been fluid at least in terms of who sits in with Arce and Stinson for a session. It seems to be a if-it-happens-it-happens kind of scenario. But even for that, it’s fortunate that this incarnation of Ten East were able to come together for Skyline Pressure and capture as much material as they did — it’s not a short journey by any means, either in bringing Harbers and Holkenborg to California to record or in a listener making their way through the nearly-hour-long album — since it’s so rare that moments which seem like they’ll never come again manage to do just that.
