Earth Tongues - Anemone (Neither Nor, 2024)

By Stef Gijssels

The liner notes in the album explain the album's title: "The experience might be best summed up by a line from George Oppen’s “Route”— “The sea anemone dreamed of something, filtering the sea water thru its body”, meaning that the musicians, performing outside in open space listen, absorb and transform, interpret what they hear. This the trio's fourth album, and again a wonderful listening experience. We hear Joe Moffett on trumpet, Dan Peck on tuba and Carlo Costa on percussion. Their voice is singular: deep sounds collectively resonating around single tones with minute shifts and timbral explorations, disappearing again in the relative silence of the surrounding environment, and after sometimes more than a minute restart again at a different pitch, with oscillating and vibrating shimmering stretched sounds that get more granularity by Costa's percussion. At times you hear (speeding) cars in the distance, or a cockerel, or the din of human presence even further, and it's amazing to know that Brooklyn is the location. 

The little pockets of sounds that intersperse the background are all different, beautiful, creative, sometimes even funny, yet always unexpected. The band's level of minimalism gives every note a precious value, a unique quality that is worth preserving for its special quality. The trio listens well and interacts well. The overall effect between sound and silence is indeed reminiscent of waves in the deep ocean, moving slowly back and forth, with no clear sense of direction, yet with a unique coherence and aesthetic quality. 

The entire performance consists of one long track of around 52 minutes. 

This is music that requires close listening, and hence also a good sound system, and - not to forget - open ears. A real treat. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.