Having recently shared “Kagen Sound”, British producer Luke Abbott has today returned with another glimpse at Translate, his first album in six years. The new track is called “Earthship”, and is as sci-fi-tastic as the name suggests. Abbott reveals:
“Of all the tracks I recorded for this album, ‘Earthship’ felt the most magical when it happened. I wasn’t planning on using the guitar when we started the sessions, but it was just sitting there, so when I started playing this doomy slow thing it just felt right to hit the guitar a few times. We had these microphones setup outside the studio picking up street noise and on this track we ended up with some radio and children going past. I couldn’t hear those bits when I was playing it, but when we brought the faders up to check the take there were all these sounds that had magically arrived and fit into the track perfectly. The track feels like flying through space, so I named it ‘Earthship’ as a nod to Buckminster Fuller’s ‘Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth’. An Earthship is also a type of passive eco home, built of recycled materials.”
Although it slowly builds across its seven minute runtime, “Earthship” is imposing from the start – and only grows more so. The thick and crawling synth intro of the song gives the impression we are seeing the titular vessel from afar, and it immediately causes trepidation because of its bulk and unidentifiable nature. As it gradually glides closer to us, “Earthship” gets louder, with the addition of booming percussion and clangs of guitar, underscored by shrieks of children, making the atmosphere even tenser. But, around the halfway point, some bright and rippling synths join in, as if the “Earthship” is now close enough for us to ascertain that it is a peaceful vessel, here to teach us and build relationships. Mesmerising in its graceful immensity, “Earthship” is, in some ways, like a spiritual sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind – if you just use your imagination a bit.
Luke Abbott’s new album Translate is coming out on October 30 through Border Community (pre-order). You can follow him on Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
