Ex-Easter Island Head

In a world obsessed with instant gratification, Ex-Easter Island Head are living proof that taking your time and sticking to your guns can be immensely rewarding eventually. The Liverpool outfit have been making idiosyncratic music for the best part of 15 years, with their persistence now paying off on several levels. Their fourth album //Norther//, released earlier this year, has won acclaim, their live shows have become a word-of-mouth sensation, and they’ve even picked up the odd celebrity endorsement along the way.

EEIH’s music is predominantly driven by guitars, though there’s a big difference between what they do and your common or garden guitar band: percussive, repetitive instrumental songs are made largely with prepared guitars laid flat to make them easier to play with beaters. These instruments are open tuned with an extra bridge inserted, a modification performed by the Dutch inventor Yuri Landman. As they’ve gotten better at what they do, live shows have become joyous affairs. Given the sonic enjoyment they suffuse, it’s easy to forget their arty origins.

“I suppose when we started, the band was coming from a very DIY take on rigorous minimalism and process music,” says founding member Ben Duvall. “And the mid-to-late 20th century avant garde.”

“It’s important to all of us that it’s accessible and fun. That it’s not too cerebral,” interjects Andrew PM Hunt, the producer of the band who has been a full time member for the last five years. He clears his throat and asks that we forgive him for the oncoming name drop: “Stewart Lee wrote something on his website about us, saying that we’re – and I’m paraphrasing – ‘experimental music presented as entertainment’. He didn’t mean it as a criticism and it certainly isn’t taken as a criticism.”

//Norther// is not a concept record, although it started with the idea of incorporating aeolian music, or music made with the assistance of wind. It can be heard at the outset of the album on the track //Weather//, created with a specially-made aeolian harp. “When you think of a harp, you obviously start thinking about the angelic,” says Duvall, “but it actually sounds closer to a sine wave or guitar feedback, and it’s physically very simple. We used some bamboo, some shelving brackets, fishing line, and a little tin can as a resonator.” That experiment would go on to inspire the unofficial theme of the record which is nature.

Talk of the band’s minimalist roots inevitably turns to Steve Reich’s studies of Balinese gamelan, which in turn moves us onto 80s King Crimson. It transpires that Ex-Easter Island Head are Crims-heads themselves. Duvall begins eulogising about the use of drum pads by Adrian Belew on //Waiting Man// from the //The Noise: Live at Frejus// ’82 film which he owns on DVD.

“There’s something about the way they present themselves that has a certain parallel with the way that we present the band, which is almost a sort of deconstructed rock band,” adds Hunt. “King Crimson will put percussion right at the front, and they’ll have people sharing instrumental roles, which is shifting the focus of the idea of the rock band a little bit. So it’s definitely been an influence.”

PROGFILE

Lineup: Benjamin D Duvall (guitars, percussion, synths, gadgets), Benjamin Fair (guitars, percussion, synths, gadgets), Andrew PM Hunt (guitars, percussion, synths, gadgets), Jon Hering (guitars, percussion, synths, gadgets)

Sounds like: Euphoric soundscapes that build from ingenious DIY beginnings

Current release: Norther is out now on Rocket Records

Website: https://www.exeasterislandhead.com/

— Jeremy Allen