{"title":"Earth Ball","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"its-yours-2","title":"It’s Yours","description":"\u003cp\u003eTruly psychedelic and damaged, Wolf Eyes favourite new group. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDecember 2012 I showed up totally exhausted in Vancouver BC after touring stupidly and relentlessly for however many straight months and got a job at a call centre raising money for the Red Cross. It was a scent free office but one time this woman cooked a piece of fish in the microwave for 10 minutes on low and hot boxed the whole office - we got sent home early no pay. There was the other woman I named the Call Centre Coltrane because her pitch and routine usually involved improvised flights of fancy that went off in both directions at once somehow landing back down with a credit card number and a donation. I used to sleep under the desk. I was there a few months and at the time I reconnected with John Brennan who I had played with briefly in Montreal at the Mutek Festival. In Montreal John was running an experimental music night at a burrito shop downtown called Garbage Night. While in Vancouver I began connecting with the music scene there and would go hang out with the Shearing Pinx lads who I think lived with Sydney the bass player at the time. I knew Nic and Jer from an AIDS Wolf Tour and was so stoked to get to know them both better.  I really fell in love with that era of Vancouver's music scene. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Fast Forward to today. 2024  Actually it was the dying days of 2023 but you get it and John asks if I'll sit in with Earth Ball and I keep thinking about Earth Balance, the vegan butter everyone eats here. I brought my aching bones and my ipads on the beautiful ferry named the Queen of Oak Bay and out to Nanaimo BC, home of the nanaimo bar (a dessert treat - special to this region - that seems to be more popularly found under the weird glass sneeze guards in office building deli's out east in Ontario.... anyhoops ). No one in Nanaimo wants to talk to me about the famous treat. I asked a couple of people. Silence. Nanaimo is like London, Ontario but more fried and by the sea. The town is filled with blown out old sea dawgs with tin coffee pots and loose leaf tobacco, then there's the usual streetfolk you find in this part of the Canadian Pacific Northwest and a bunch of bohemians who I guess have left Vancouver behind - that fine city having become uninhabitable for those not making over 100k a year. And then up the way are all the retirees.   Yup Nanaimo is a strange one. They mined the shit out of this region and Nanaimo is surely haunted by those buried in mining shafts or maimed by the heavy machinery or blown up by accident in the explosives store house. And when Earth Ball fire up the amps in Izzy and Jer's basement you can hear the voices of the ghosts hum through electrical lines and out the speakers, Kellen's hued feedback, Izy's sturdy basslines, Jer's paperbag guitar tone and rumble pack zaps, Liam's (aka the Kid) sheets of sound and Brennen's multidirectional drums. You wouldn't guess Earth Ball was auto-composing and from what my rat brain can tell - the lyrics are improvised too...Improvising lyrics and singing them is the hardest thing to do in all of music.. Izzy and Jer are pros. And their attitudes are pro too.  The live show is scorched and without naming names they've been known to make headliners nervous.  Lucky ones will get to see them live as they tour this beast of a record entitled ‘It’s Yours’ (out May 17th on Upset The Rhythm) and I hope I'm one of them.  But now you, fan of fun but totally fucked up music, have the opportunity to Ball with them thanks to Upset The Rhythm.  Enjoy - Alex Moskos, Montreal QC, Feb 2024\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Upset The Rhythm","offers":[{"title":"LP - Clear","offer_id":50417059889483,"sku":"2189372","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP - Transparent Yellow","offer_id":58005748089163,"sku":"R6539-0830","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/UTR164_b768504c_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726715287"},{"product_id":"actual-earth-music-volume-1-and-2","title":"Actual Earth Music  Volume 1 and 2","description":"\u003cp\u003eTwo euphoric and crushing live sets from Vancouver Island’s experimental rock demolition unit Earth Ball, featuring improv legends Steve Beresford and Chris Corsano. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 and 2\u003c\/i\u003e presents two caustic, yet alluringly unreal live sets from Canadian noise-rock entropy hunters Earth Ball. Following on from the group’s critically appraised \u003ci\u003eIt’s Yours\u003c\/i\u003e LP, this release captures the band at the peak of their powers, playing live, composing spontaneously. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Side A features Earth Ball live at The Fox Cabaret in Vancouver, supporting Wolf Eyes on August 4, 2023. Jeremy Van Wyck from the band considers this “the gig that sent us into orbit, really. Causing Olson and Young to wax poetic about our interstellar jams to a fine bloke across the big sea. Upsetting our casual rhythm and forcing our hand. All that talk led to an LP, \u003ci\u003eIt’s Yours\u003c\/i\u003e, and a full UK tour the following spring”. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Now, with the birth of this live series ‘Actual Earth Music’, it seems only fitting that Volume 1 should be this gig. It’s a doozy. Listening back is a pure revelation. Earth Ball whip up a vortex of thrashing wild energy, the ecstatic release is off the charts. “You don’t always catch every nuance of the jams as they come down. I mean, this one felt good, but upon listening back to the tapes, it sounded very good” confides Jeremy. “It reminded me of Von Trier’s Melancholia: the sound of a large sphere coming toward you to bring doom. However, this one reverses course, heading away to some other shore, bathing you in reflective bliss before saying goodbye—instead of ending humanity as we know it”.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVolume 2 occupies Side B of this LP, showcasing a collaborative summit from the second night of their recent Café OTO residency on May 21, 2024. This event featured Earth Ball laying down three separate sets - all collaborations. This second recording presents their opening performance and features pivotal UK improv luminary Steve Beresford on piano and free-jazz phenomenon Chris Corsano on drums. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Upset The Rhythm","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":51116031181131,"sku":"2239985","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/UTR172_750aade6_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1737122360"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/de\/collections\/earth-ball.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}