You will have probably grown accustomed to us waxing lyrical about Old Earth by now. We’ve written LPs and EPs and even spoken to the man himself. The reason for all the attention is simple, Todd Umhoefer, the human being behind the project, continues to produce music that sounds like nothing anybody else is making. Umhoefer has recently migrated west, from Milwaukee to California, but that hasn’t stopped him putting out remarkably singular and distinctive records. His latest single/proto-EP, …until they’re called, is a testament to that fact.
I’m always amazed by Umhoefer’s ability to make his sprawling songs sound so focused. I mean, there’s not an ounce of fat on this track despite the fact it breaks the 12 minute barrier. Although the track arguably isn’t a single song at all, but a neat package of three songs which meld and dissolve into one another in dream-like fashion, doors opening not just into different rooms but into different houses altogether. It could just be the way my brain is wired, but OE music has this trance-like quality that is almost impossible to describe. It’s music that isn’t satisfied with making pretty sounds in the background, that gets right to the root of things.
The EP begins with a segment titled, ‘slept in shoes to catch it in The Dark’, a lean and wiry guitar line at the fore, lower rumbles in the background. Umhoefer delivers the vocals in his usual insistent manner, lyrics vague and indeterminate but steeped in meaning, like the lines of some arcane invocation:
What was the omen, and
what did the stars read?
Where did the river turn, and
where were the trees?
When did the day end, and
what was the moon’s phase, andWhen did the tone change?
The track also provides the first glimpse of a new side to Old Earth. The move to California has allowed Umhoefer to work with a new group of collaborators, one of whom (credited as “Lopez”) provides female vocals which serve as the ideal counterpoint to Umhoefer’s. There is also help from people ambiguously named Burnett, Moen and Fritch (who I believe to be musician/composer/producer William Ryan Fritch).
Things take a new direction after around four and a half minutes, segueing into a segment called ‘demystified!’. Here the female vocals become even more prominent and provide perhaps the closest thing to a chorus Old Earth has ever produced, “Come with me we’ll sail away / I know a place without a name”. Then, around the 8 minute mark, some instrument starts whirring like an agitated bee and the track shifts quickly with hand claps and insistent guitars. This is the beginning of the final segment, ‘One kinda dream inna place lie thisss’ and this time it’s Lopez’s turn to chant vocals,
“Bright lights
Lost sight
Crossed eyes
Cold fights
Low cries
Oh why why why why?”
Umhoefer then brings proceedings to a close with a typically surreal final line, “Undercut in overtone, the kind of hum that isn’t fully groan / Down a hall that doesn’t way, we’re windowing a rope to hang a sway”. Make of that what you will, but be sure that none of this is simple gibberish. Put …until they’re called on repeat and listen and listen and I guarantee you’ll start to divine its meaning.
Get the EP from the Old Earth Bandcamp page and get one of the nice limited edition prints while you’re at it?