We’ve featured Old Earth, the recording project of California-based Todd Umhoefer, numerous times since their inclusion on a ‘Best Of’ list back in 2011, constantly amazed and baffled by the strange, pervasive music Umhoefer puts out. Lay For June, self-published by Arrow Girl, is what Umhoefer describes as “the last Old Earth record for a while”, so we are delighted and honoured to have the entire release streaming on our site.
For those unfamiliar, Umhoefer’s writing style has an almost cosmic feel, a multitude of notes and riffs and words floating in some wide open space, orbiting his central force and periodically aligning into striking order, before shifting into another shape entirely. Every so often an arrangement will appear that’s at least partly recognizable, the patterns converging into similar areas, and as such his discography possesses a something of a common thread, shot through with quasi-repetitions and half-familiar snatches, a musical déjà vu which lurks like half-forgotten dreams. Lay For June was recorded in a single 32-minute take (and is only split into separate ‘songs’ in the liner notes), with only the vocals overdubbed, giving a real organic sense to the ebb and flow of the music and allowing the ghosts of past and future songs to worm their way in. Opener ‘Julija May, Julia Joy’, an urgent cousin of A Wake in the Wells, ticks into life like some complex clockwork mechanism, ominous and fevered and on-edge, as if the whole thing might trip away into nothing or everything at once. Umhoefer’s words appear after around 90 seconds as if he’s been waiting for you, stark and clear and convinced of something not quite legible, something important on the edge of your comprehension. “Won’t find hope, won’t find grace,” he sings, “won’t find a ray in the dark, or The Call”. ‘brittle, crushed’ follows in cryptic continuation, insisting further upon the point, as if hoping to draw some essence of truth out of esoteric imagery.
“Sung to a tower that echoes the home,
‘Don’t knock the boat as long as it floats’On down the row and on down the road
Killed on the row and killed on the road”
‘Ship to Ship (rough running)’ is somehow both desperate and wistful, as if sung from the strange relief experienced upon giving in to disquiet, and ‘trace parts (you, me, & us)’ emerges wide-eyed and gripped by feeling, Umhoefer’s words echoing in a pocket of crystalline silence still vibrating from past violence. “In case,” he sings, “the dust is all that’s left of us / underneath the growing rust / undone”. ‘Nothing Gives Way’ heralds the return of something, an unnamed wonder or dread which rises to a near-celestial crescendo (“Here came that breath from the cave /Here came that thing that you hold over and over again… unspeakable”), before ‘All No Few Many Any’ sees the return of the shredding click. Here the instrumentation is off-kilter and warped, played on fast-forward or out of control, threatening to break into a deep white static. Umhoefer’s words appear with sudden clarity once again, so clear and obvious it seems any problem with regard to understanding their meaning must lie with the listener.
“It was the fall-
blame it on the roof,
don’t blame it on usled, closed, involved
You count those stars from the roof, but a light becomes mine
when I’m holding my eyes to the ground”
It seems pertinent to mention that Lay For June was first scheduled for release on the 1st February, the day of Imbolc. A celebration of the lengthening of the days, the Gaelic festival is associated with Brigid, the goddess of fertility, healing and poetry, and has been carried into Christian practice as St Brigid’s Day. Imbloc is celebrated by lighting candles and fires and visiting holy wells, by leaving coins and clooties or offering milk to the ground and porridge to the sea, by cleaning your home in preparation for longer, lighter days. Lay For June is not the easily-traceable giant spring metaphor you might expect, but the festival is relevant. The past is important here, as is the future, and particularly communication through ritual and symbolism. Questions and answers are transposed and made strange, hope and faith required for powers both internal and external, the narrator walking a tightrope of wonder and terror.
‘Woke Down’ is a wordless track from which ‘book to book (crooked on both sides)’ creeps in whispered fervour. “Didn’t you love all the other men?” he demands. “Didn’t you love a man who sang it blue?” The track is the closest thing to a traditional fingerpicked folk song, the final line delivered in near-silence, before the wheels begin turning again and ‘Named- for, or belonging to’ materialises with familiar ticking and incipient dread. “Won’t find comfort in day,” he warns, “you know what comes when you call its name / You know what comes when you dance in the forest at night”. ‘one Eye at a time’ is a haunting acapella section, while the dual vocals with Ashley Jarrett on ‘Read and Keep’ give the words an increased weight, no longer a single opinion but a shared sentiment you can’t ignore.
“You should’ve paid attention,
all of the caves gave a cause for the soundYou should’ve paid attention,
‘This is not mine, this is not what I am'”
“that thing / that haunts / that whole day” is a restrained instrumental piece, twitching and grasping before catching into a steady rhythm, from which ‘When I started walking, it was light out’ surfaces, a song as sincere and explicit as anything on the record. “Cut from the line / ageing from the wrong kind of time / and what of those ruins we climbed? / Oh how I miss you, Darlin’ I miss you”. ‘near Nothing’ continues, playing like spoken thoughts in dead houses, homes grown black and lost yet throbbing with time which passed you by (“Mom, it’s me / Mom, it’s ME”), while ‘unbonded, unbroken’ continues as if drawing energy from previous utterances, finding a groove in the sonic etchings through which something important will be found.
“There’s no kind of right mind for this.
Don’t get excited!
Close your eyes and sit down,
Leave the calls alone”
If all that sounds vague and unclear then, for once, we won’t apologise. Because, though it’s strange to say after this, the latest of several attempts, trying to put Old Earth’s music into words seems futile and kind of besides the point. There’s never going to be a satisfactory way to describe art so fluid and weird and instinctive, so all we can tell you is what it sounds like to us. It’s operating on a deeper level, one not easily outlined, playing on some atavistic region of the subconscious that reacts to fear and beauty, that treats intense wonder and dread as the same emotion. It’s the same area of the brain that tells us to light candles and throw coins down wells no matter how secular our society becomes. But that’s just us. Kick back with some decent headphones and decide what it means to you.
You can buy Lay For June now via the Old Earth Bandcamp page. There’s also a generous offer on for the entire discography, so why not pick that up?
Cover photo by Scott Evans, album art by Jamie Morgan