EARTHLING SOCIETY "Tears of Andromeda-black sails against the sky -Ok this is space rock I suppose. Personally, live we are a space rock outfit, recording wise we are something entirely different. This to me is a kind of 'Todd Tammaned Clark' Mid 70’s epic with a Detroit thrust. There's a proper 60's fuzz guitar going on too, sort of like The Hogs 'Blues Theme' from The wild angels movie, and it's got that late night murky garage thing going on which I love." UK based Earthling Society formed in January 2004 with the intention of creating music influenced by their heroes Ash Ra Tempel, Can, Amon Düül II, Hawkwind and Funkadelic. Since then the band have excelled at synthesizing these influences into a psychedeliciously space rocking whole. It's all drenched with a distinctly 70s sound, yet is nonetheless stamped with the band's own fresh and inspiring take on these varied influences. With three albums to date, Earthling Society create a tasty blend of Space Rock and festie Psychedelia, with both shorter songs and lengthy jams, all along establishing themselves as one of the most exciting bands on the contemporary Space Rock scene. Eartling Society's latest album, "Tears of Andromeda-Black sails against the sky" is out now on Germany's own Nasoni Records. Listen to the on demand audio stream of Earthling Society live at Roadburn 2007. Words | Fred "Tears of Andromeda-Black sails against the sky" is somewhat a departure from our last album "Plastic Jesus and the third eye blind." Gone are the heavy banks of synths and prog / space rock leanings, gone too is the digital 8trk sound. For the new album E-S paired down to a duo and recorded something that is way out there. More lysergic and organic, Like a mycelium network of sound structures with an Alice through the Looking glass wonderment. Fed on a diet of Walter Wegmuller's 'Tarot', Flower Travellin' band circa "Make-up", Klaus Schultze's "Moondawn" and Ash Ra Temple's "Such And Liebe" on heavy rotation, we created our own unique pot-pourri of modern psychedelia in slow-motion grandeur. Tears of Andromeda-Black > On to the tracks... Wromg A title originally conceived by x-Radio Birdman manager and good friend of E-society, Jules Normington. "You MUST call a song Wromg!" he once told me. Still don't know the reason behind it, but I've done it. The song starts off a little like the Clockwork Orange soundtrack by Wendy Carlos, very dark sounding. We deliberately shied away from modern keyboards for the album, and the arabesque notes and dirge like drones actually come from a CasioVLtone. The Calculator keyboard made famous in the 80’s with the No.1 hit 'DaDaDa' by Germany's 'Trio.' The song then leaps into a High speed 'Neu 75' motorik number with a prog style Choir that pops up now and then. Very epic in a 'Fanfare for a Common man' vein!! Black Country Sorceror This is the only track to feature the full E-S line-up. The reason for this was due to the fact that our keyboardist Kevy had to go back to Ireland due to a hair gel catastrophe and Dave the bass player faded to a shadow and had to go away to be crayoned back to colour. The track is a Cinematic slow-motion number very early post Barrett Floyd I suppose. It's got that Autumnal melancholic feel. I’m very proud of it and Kevy's use of Mellotron and piano is outstanding. Miss Liberty’s Morning Dew It's a reference to magic mushrooms. Miss Liberty being the Liberty cap and the dew on the grass that causes them to spring out of the ground. There are also references to The wind in the willows and Matthew Kelly's 'Stars in their eyes', with the lyric line, "Tonight Matthew I’m gonna be... Just what I wanna be." I really love this song, It's very summery. A very twisted pop song in my opinion and it should be number one all around the world. So let’s turn the kids onto ACID!! Lucifer Starlight This is the first of the three Epics on the album and where the whole sound goes more strange and surreal. It was recorded with no thought at all and made up completely on the spot. I detuned the guitar to the DAGDAD tuning, ran through it once and then pressed record, adding organ and synth afterwards. I presented it to Jon our drummer at the studio who had not even heard the track and he added all his percussion, giving it a kind of early Popul Vuh feel. I hadn’t written any lyrics so I sang the first verse of Aleister Crowley's 'Hymn to Terminus' through a reverse delay pedal, which worked surprisingly well. I think it's a fucking great track, completely like no-one else. A Song for John Donne It’s always a bit of a risk putting a world famous piece of poetry to song. It can sound pompous and worse still, lose the entire meaning of what the poet was trying to say. The first part was I alone with guitar, claves and recorder. The poem is very Olde English but I wanted to take it as far away from that setting as possible. It's so obvious adding Harpsichord, medieval drums and getting some girl to sing it in a Sandy Denny manner. So instead I went for a kind of Japanese / Asian feel like the soundtracks to 'Onibaba' and 'Kuronecko.' Freeform and random where the space between is equally as important as the noted around it. I listened to Ash Ra Temple's 'Suche and Leibe' constantly and I wanted to build the song up in the same manner, bringing the drums and electric guitar in very late into the song. I tried to recreate the Phil Spector drum sound with lashings of reverb, and I think it gives the song a haunted quality. For the vocals I sang completely naked [there was no-one around] and sang it in a very raw state, leaving in any out of key notes for the sake of emotional value. It's a beautiful number and a great contrast to the final Epic to come. Tears of Andromeda-black sails against the sky Ok this is space rock I suppose. Personally, live we are a space rock outfit, recording wise we are something entirely different. This to me is a kind of 'Todd Tammaned Clark' Mid 70’s epic with a Detroit thrust. Again I only used vintage synths. The Jen synthtone 1000 and the CasioVLtone. There's a proper 60's fuzz guitar going on too, sort of like The Hogs 'Blues Theme' from The wild angels movie, and it's got that late night murky garage thing going on which I love. The second part ascends into Ash Ra temple jammin' with Funkadelic circa 'Free your mind...' before calming down to a tranquil sea of tablas and phased moog. It's a 21 minute killer track and I love it! [Almost] Transparent Blue Named after a Cult 70's Japanese novel about fucked up punks, this song is a suitable finish to the album. Backwards distorted drums, synth bass and moog come together for a mini-progrock instrumental in slow motion. You can actually see plasma trails coming off your limbs when you play this song. Wave your arms about... Can you see?