Earth

For nearly three decades Dylan Carlson has remained Earth’s solitary enduring presence, occupying an unusually flexible position within rock music. From its inception the group has embodied both pioneering efforts in experimental drone guitar textures and the slowed, detuned riff style drawn from Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi. Even as Sunn 0))) and Boris openly trace their very identities to Earth’s example, the band continues to stand apart. Its sole unchanging trait is perpetual evolution, an ironic constant in light of music built on dense, trance-like repetition. The 1993 release Earth 2, a vast and immovable slab of sound, essentially founded the drone and ambient metal styles while emerging from the Pacific Northwest just as grunge was rising. Further recordings throughout the remainder of that decade reinforced this identity. Following the 1996 album Pentastar: In the Style of Demons, Earth entered a lengthy pause prompted by Carlson’s severe personal struggles with heroin addiction. Once sober he relaunched the project in 2003 alongside drummer Adrienne Davies, resulting in 2005’s Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method, whose dry, fragile melodies fused psychedelic rock, Gothic Americana, and spaghetti-western atmospheres. Over the next ten years the band refined and expanded those structural ideas, probing the spaces between sustained tones and resonant overtones. This trajectory led to the heavier yet introspective Primitive & Deadly and, in 2017, to Concrete Desert, a joint effort with Kevin Martin, better known as the Bug and a master of sharp rhythms and unconventional electronics.

Earth originated in 1989 in Olympia, Washington, assembled by Carlson together with Slim Moon, who would later establish the Kill Rock Stars label, and Greg Babior. Moon and Babior departed shortly thereafter, their places taken by Joe Preston. After several performances the trio laid down early material with engineer Mike Lastra. An opening slot for L7 in Seattle brought the group to the attention of Sub Pop Records, which issued those recordings in 1991 under the title Extra-Capsular Extraction. The following year Carlson and Preston tracked Earth 2 with producer Stewert Hallerman; Preston exited soon after its appearance. Displeased with the band’s unhurried pace, Sub Pop halted 1993 sessions for what would have been the third album. Work resumed the next year under producer Ian Dickson, who joined permanently within twelve months, engineer Scott Benson, and drummer Rick Cambern, finally yielding Phase 3 in April 1995. A concert recording from a Blast First event surfaced the same year as Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars. In early 1996 Sub Pop unexpectedly renewed its commitment for three additional albums, allowing Carlson to complete Pentastar: In the Style of Demons with guitarist Shawn McElligot and drummer Mike McDaniels now aboard. After a handful of subsequent shows Earth dissolved without formal announcement. A live document appeared in 2000, followed in 2001 by a collection of demos that included one track featuring vocals from the late Kurt Cobain, packaged with a CD edition of the Sunn Amps EP. Sub Pop also offered an Earth video titled A Bureaucratic Desire for Revenge.

The project resurfaced in 2002 for concerts across the United States and Europe, now pared to the duo of Carlson and Adrienne Davies. That configuration documented itself on the 2005 live album Living in the Gleam of an Unsheathed Sword, whose title piece stretches nearly an hour. Later that September the more expansive Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method emerged, evoking the notion of a drone-metal ensemble interpreting Giant Sand or Scenic. Hibernaculum arrived in 2008, comprising four extended pieces—three drawn from prior works yet recast in the group’s current sonic language—accompanied by a DVD of Hex-tour footage and interviews. The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull followed in 2009, pushing the later Earth aesthetic toward still more abstract and cinematic terrain.

Southern Lord issued A Bureaucratic Desire for Extra-Capsular Extraction in 2010, a remastered anthology gathering the complete 1990 Smegma Studios sessions that had previously appeared separately on Extra-Capsular Extraction and Sunn Amps & Smashed Guitars. Carlson revisited the exploratory path first mapped on Hex with the opening installment of a planned trilogy, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light, Vol. 1, released by Southern Lord in 2011. Its successor, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light, Vol. 2, reached listeners in early 2012. The equally varied Primitive and Deadly, featuring guest vocalists Mark Lanegan and Rabia Shaheen Qazi of Rose Windows, appeared in late summer 2014. That same year Earth collaborated with electronic artist Kevin Martin, aka the Bug, on a limited 12-inch single issued for Record Store Day. The partnership continued with the 2017 release Concrete Desert. Two years afterward Carlson reduced the lineup once more to its core duo, retaining only Davies for Full Upon Her Burning Lips, an album that foregrounded percussive elements while preserving the panoramic scope of earlier work.