Electric Mud "Quiet Days on Earth"

Hello and welcome to the Concert Closet fellow progheads!  We are now officially winding down the "dog days of summer" as the prog garden continues to reap a mighty harvest.  This month I venture back to Germany for a visit with a band I discovered a few years ago.  It has been very enjoyable to listen to Electric Mud and experience first-hand how their sound has grown, expanded, and matured.

Germany isn't exactly known as a "prog hotspot" the way other countries are perhaps, but it is home to some excellent music and artists nonetheless.  Electric Mud is such a band so I am excited to listen in on their latest release "Quiet Days on Earth."  Their music has ventured all over the prog garden on their previous albums; hard-hitting blues, avant-garde jam sessions, dark post rock, and jazz fusion to stir your memory.  So my curiosity is piqued; what surprises are in store this time around?

First song queued up is "Adventures in a Liquid World."  The song opens as gentle as a stone skimming across a lake; the serenity of the scene broken by the quiet interruption of a guitar rippling through the headphones.  There are genuine top notes of the Discipline-era King Crimson bantering across this piece; the ambient tranquility is beautiful.  The canvas is streaked with soft hues meant to calm the listener.  The tempo changes are striking mainly because the mood continues to caress your inner being. 

The next song to ebb through the headphones is "Eyes Watching Skies."  The keyboards that open the piece immediately take me to an Alan Parsons Project-like concept...something along the lines of a macabre dance to the story's epilogue .  However; the mood changes quickly yet subtly and you feel yourself floating in space--indeed watching the sky change from that gentle crystal blue to a mild gray to a darkness lit by the stars.  So much happening in less than four minutes.  The drums are surrounded on all sides by keyboards that at first seem to channel Keith Emerson in that moment before he slays the organ, fading smoothly into Jordan Rudess caught in one of his deeper moments of poignant thought...

Liner Notes...the mind behind the conceptual sounds belongs to one Hagen Bretschneider who also plays bass.  He is joined by Nico Walser who performs all other instruments, is co-composer, and engineers the album.  Guitar riffs on the album are performed by Lennart Hueper.

This latest release from Electric Mud is ambient music meets 70's prog meets post-progressive music.  Think Brian Eno working with Tangerine Dream   with hints of Talking Heads on their "Remain In Light" tour edging on the perimeter.  Hagen and Nico have created a sound and accompanied it with striking visuals; the canvas runs vividly with many hues.  Emotion is brought to life a la Abstract Aprils, albeit with a bit more flair.

Learn more about Electric Mud, check out their entire catalog, and make a purchase at their website
ElectricMud and bandcamp.  You can follow the band on Facebook and Twitter @Electricmudd.

One more song to captivate your senses;  "The Loneliness of the Somnambulist."  There is an odd, almost foreboding mood flowing through the headphones on this cut.  Electric Mud captures your attention by painting vivid pictures with every color of the spectrum; the dark hues are tinged with the exuberant colors of daylight dancing on the horizon.  In much the way Robert Fripp and Eno, Moebius, and Roedelius brought music to life without using words, so to Electric Mud has tapped that vein.

I chose "Wading Through the Waters of Time" as your aural teaser this week because it puts on full display all the genius behind the curtain.  Hagen and Nico have crossed into yet another section of the prog garden with this album.  Electric Mud doesn't reinvent itself every time out per se, but they are very good at stretching the boundaries and expanding their soundscape...please to enjoy...


                      

I hope you enjoyed the music this week fellow progheads.  Electric Mud comes at you with visuals as well as sounds; images to translate the music and allow you to focus and submerge yourself...forgetting the world around you even if it's just for a little while.  Prog rock in this section of the prog garden is nothing short of an out-of-body experience...

Now the search for all things prog starts out on a new journey...until next time...