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Large Electric Ensemble

by Ex-Easter Island Head

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about

Large Electric Ensemble is Ex-Easter Island Head's fourth release and their first piece for massed electric guitars and percussion. 

Following on from Mallet Guitars Three (2013), Large Electric Ensemble sees the group expand to include twelve prepared electric guitars and drums to create a vast wash of amplified strings and droning overtones. 

Commissioned for the first World Event Young Artists (WEYA) festival held in Nottingham, UK, during September 2012, the piece was developed alongside an ensemble of local musicians from a variety of musical backgrounds. Following its WEYA debut, the piece was developed over subsequent months before being recorded live in March 2013. Utilising third bridge preparations (inserting metal rods beneath the guitar strings) and a range of alternate tunings across the ensemble, the piece combines propulsive, rhythmic minimalism with chorusing attacks of massed harmonics. 

Across four movements, the ensemble adopt a new vocabulary of playing based around various guitar preparations, from billowing harp-like arpeggios to 'bowing' the strings with allen keys to produce luminous upper register drones. Microtonal intervals create shimmering tones akin to the struck metallophones of Balinese gamelan, whilst the thrum of electrified strings creates a dense undertow of singing harmonies. Scored in custom notation the piece places free flowing passages alongside conductor cues, allowing the players to collectively create a distinctive sonic landscape. 

Beginning with a strident accumulation of ringing chords underpinned by the metronomic pulse of a ship's bell, the final chord of the first movement is stretched to infinity across the slowly growing storm of the second. Evolving from impressionistic ambience to tumultuous clamour, movements three and four lock into a pulsing continuum of contrapuntal chords, rapidly building momentum until the final crescendo.


“It’s got clear roots in the churning pulses, alternate tunings and dense harmonic worlds of Glenn Branca’s symphonies, but in other parts, it’s also got some of Slint’s dynamic, splintered riffs, and in the second movement, slow and steady cymbal washes and an immersion in the subtle, chiming, quiet mass: all the strings being heard at once.”

- Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

“A ticking skitter of jangling harmonics funnelled into a spellbinding crescendo…Large Electric Ensemble is another essential release for both group and label”

- The Wire

credits

released September 4, 2020

Originally released by Low Point records, January 20, 2014

Written and performed by Ex-Easter Island Head:

Jacob Chabeaux
Benjamin D. Duvall
George Maund

with:

Sarah Baily
Katharine Eira Brown
James Finlay
Matthew Fleetwood
Gareth Hardwick
Jonathan Hering
Neil Johnson
Graham Langley
Dan Layton
Mark Lowman
David Stockwell
Chris Summerlin

Recorded by Peter Fletcher at Paper Stone, Nottingham 23-24th March 2013

Mixing and additional production by James Rand

Mastering by Gareth Hardwick

Cover by Chris Summerlin

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Ex-Easter Island Head Liverpool, UK

UK-based quartet composing and performing music for Prepared Electric Guitar, Percussion + other instruments

Mechanical preparations and extended techniques // group interplay and melodic invention through purposely limited means

"Churning pulses, alternate tunings
and dense harmonic worlds...all the strings being heard at once"
- New York Times

"Free flowing genius" - Guardian
... more

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