Biography
"The Earth is Black" was recorded to analog tape over an eight month period. While the album's process stretched out from December 2007 until July 2008, lapses in time gave way to line up and location changes. Vincent Cacchione, the bands principal songwriter, began tracking in the New Jersey basement of a dear friend, Nick Coleman, on modest 8 track home recording gear. Most of the basics carved out in just a few takes, the duo of Cacchione and Coleman meticulously crafted each track, orchestrating the album with bursts of noise and melody. With help from Michael Fremmer (Audiophile magazine staff writer), the tracks were mixed. The result of these recordings comprises half of the album's track listing.
On the heels of successful releases from Brooklyn's Vivian Girls and The Royal Chains, Plays With Dolls Records got a hold of these recordings and helped the band complete the album by putting them in the studio with engineer Charles Burst at Brooklyn's Seaside Lounge (Neko Case, Crystal Stilts, Psychic Ills). With a large texture leap from their initial tracks, the band entered the studio, recording live in under two takes the remainder of the album. Those recordings were then maniacally overdubbed and crafted over a further week of recording. The album is formed by equal parts of these sessions.
"It seems pretty limiting to refer to a record as a strict concept," says Cacchione, "but at the same time its inaccurate to avoid that tag when your dealing with songs that grew from a similar patch of creative soil." The album was written during a seven month period when the songwriters notorious sleeplessness was at its worst. Recalling vivid scenes and ideas from his nightmares, Cacchione cautiously turned these nocturnal symbols into pop and poetry. The album's song cycle reveals a tension between the dark nature of its words and the deceptively light nature of its melodies. The end result is a collection of songs that are as hypnotic as they are manic.
Informing the album's cover art and setting the tone for it's descent into the nocturnal, "The Earth is Black," marries the tale of a narrator awakened to a world of blood-filled clouds and bloodless bodies with a propulsive and primitive rhythm. A long time live favorite, often complete with audiences merrily singing along with lyrics about blood raining from above, the song concludes with the refrain, "the awful sky is dripping on me." "The Flesh of The Sky" petitions the heavens with a tribe of percussion performing a primitive rain dance. Penultimate track "Did You Put A Spell On Me?" is an autobiographical tale of paranoia and mysticism inspired by an occult-dabbling ex-lover. These lyrical themes are mirrored by a track littered with screaming feedback, droning electronics, and unruly guitars. It also features a guest vocal performance from Shilpa Ray. On "Night Terrors", the album's haunted climax, synthesizers breathe down the neck of a downtempo groove tweaked out with delayed guitars and cello. The record is not without it's genuine moments of serenity on, "Time Gets Away And Has It's Way With You," a slow motion account of the day to day, minimalist drums find happy harmony with glockenspiel and slide guitar. First single "I Am An Animal," with its eery decay and howl, chronicles cro-mangum man, via a garage rock anthem. Although the band remains modest, The Earth is Black holds the potential to be remembered among the finest of its time and certainly deserves a few spins.
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