"Recollection is especially prescient to our current age, as the ever increasing sense of dread, anxiety, and doom scrolling requires a few moment’s worth of unplugging and unwinding."
With roots in the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene, American producer Jacob Long has logged decades in the musical trenches. Outside of his well known stints playing bass in Black Eyes and Mi Ami, Long has used Earthen Sea as a solo vessel to explore a wide array of sonics. Having come to a larger audience with foggy dub techno releases on Lover’s Rock and Kranky, the project’s roots go back to small run experimental drone cassettes and CD-Rs in the early to mid-2000s.
The lengthy experimental sounds gave way to a timeless dub techno aesthetic prominently displayed on 2017’s ‘An Act of Love‘, put out on Earthen Sea’s current label home of Kranky. It harkened back to the classics of the genre but was firmly its own entity, offering crisp techno interspersed with lush ambient interludes. From there, Long moved in a different direction. Starting with 2019’s ‘Grass and Trees‘ and continuing into the new LP “Recollection”, Earthen Sea has embraced experimental collages that connect the dots between low-lit home listening and art gallery openings. Taking inspiration from “a year-long immersion in the ECM label catalog”, ‘Recollection’ presents hypnotic, skeletal jazz with generous dub flourishes for a deep, serene listening experience.
Divided into nine pieces that could easily sprawl into the double digit minute range, Earthen Sea keeps each track concise and engaging while still feeling like there’s room to sprawl. The audio palette may feel drab at first, but make your way through the album and you’ll become familiar with the tone and marvel at the album’s use of jazz and dub flourishes to animate the downcast ambient tone.
The percussive splashes throughout “Another Space” soar when paired with the gliding bass line. Its ghostly groove takes its time and hooks you in when the cymbals gently crash. A similar rhythmic feel animates “Neon Ruins”, a meditative dive into the deep end, with a fuzzy bass riff exuding a warmth on the icy sounds that surround it. The brief but effective “Abstract, Tell” doles out GAS-esque ambient electronica that shimmers and hypnotises before returning from the clouds on “White Sky”.
The record’s closing track eases the listener out with variations on what’s been heard before, but these tracks highlight what works so well about ‘Recollection’. Long uses his minimal palette to great effect in crafting absorbing tracks that touch on similar themes but stand on their own and don’t get lost in the ether.
With an already established stellar discography, Earthen Sea continues the trend of quality ambient-adjacent experimental sounds. ‘Recollection‘ is especially prescient to our current age, as the ever increasing sense of dread, anxiety, and doom scrolling requires a few moment’s worth of unplugging and unwinding.
The tones offered throughout this album open up a space to contemplate, escape, or let our attention wander with only the audio as our guide. In a time of constant distraction and soulless content, Earthen Sea returns at the proper time, and ‘Recollection‘ stands as an excellent evolution and addition to a masterful catalog.
‘Recollection’ is out now via Kranky. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Present Day
2. Another Space
3. Sunlit Leaving
4. A Single Pub
5. Neon Ruins
6. Clear Photograph
7. Cloudy Vagueness
8. Abstract, Tell
9. White Sky