Today sees the much anticipated release of Twenty-Two Strings, the new album from experimental mallet-guitar trio Ex-Easter Island Head. With an ever evolving line-up, and currently comprising Benjamin Duvall, Benjamin Fair and Jonathan Hering. Ex-Easter Island Head started as the solo project of Benjamin Duvall in 2009, existing with different line ups including large ensembles. With two incredible albums under their belt, the Liverpool based collective also count a number of stellar collaborations, including with the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Arnold Dreyblatt, experimental instrument builder Yuri Landman and avant-garde artist / choreographer Kei Miyata.
Described as “their most complex and focused release yet”, the new album “finds the group refining their overtone-rich string explorations around a skeleton of tuned bells and drums, bringing a new propulsive momentum to the group’s goal of “an ever changing surface over an unmoving centre”. The press release adds that “Ex-Easter Island Head push the boundaries of their intentionally restrained set-up, balancing austere physicality with luminescent abstraction to create a bold summation of the group’s work to date”.
Ex-Easter Island Head are celebrating the album’s release with two launch shows later this month. They are performing in Liverpool on August 18th at the Philharmonic Music Room, and in London the following day at Iklectik.
To get you enticed, here’s the album’s heavenly ‘Sixteen Snares’. Listen to it below and grab the album from Low Point.
