It’s rare to have any vocals appear on of the fog-enshrouded landscapes that Jacob Long devises as Earthen Sea. But earlier this month, Long cleared out his hard drive with A Serious Thing, a nine-track compilation of tracks recorded in the past three years (with all proceeds going to the International Refugee Assistance Project, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the National Lawyers Guild). Less than a minute in, the voice of firebrand gay Harlem intellectual James Baldwin emerges from the mists and speaks of the crucial role of dreamers in their respective societies. “The poets (by which I mean all artists) are finally the only people who know the truth about us,” Baldwin said. “Soldiers don’t, statesmen don’t, priests don’t, union leaders don’t. Only the poets.”
And while there are no words and no voices that appear on An Act of Love, Long’s debut for Kranky, that poet’s search for an undeniable truth powers the eight breathtaking tracks that appear here. A hardcore veteran who’s played in D.C. bands like Amalgamation and Black Eyes, Long later played bass in the adventurous punk act Mi Ami. Over time, that trio mutated from art-rock towards the sounds of Chicago house and Jamaican dub, soon splintering into three separate electronic acts: drummer Damon Palermo became Magic Touch and guitarist Daniel Martin-McCormick became Ital.
Long himself took the foundations of dub as the starting point for his next iteration, Earthen Sea. Much like the godfathers of minimal techno—Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, Vladislav Delay circa Multila, the entire Chain Reaction roster—Long realized there was sublimity to be had in endless reverb, delay, and its sonic residue. And with 2014’s Mirage, released on Martin-McCormick’s Lovers Rock label, Earthen Sea’s aesthetic solidified. An Act of Love is a continuation of that effort, though there’s a feeling of refinement and awareness that gives each element here a heightened radiance. Even in the buzzing static and air organ chords that comprise beatless opener “The Present Mist,” there’s a sense of grace, of deep breaths being drawn musically that makes it standout from other ambient noise of its ilk.
Earthen Sea makes minimal dub techno, but while Long’s components are suggestive of dance music—especially the 707 that drives most of the tracks—the context for each programmed hit seems to not be a packed club. Rather, Earthen Sea could soundtrack a depopulated metropolis, each beat bouncing off of concrete. A squelchy kick drives “About That Time” and other elements wash in: a canned clap, a tapped ride cymbal, a piano line as contemplative and sonorous as that of Harold Budd. But underneath all of that is a gloriously slow swell of white noise, which rises and falls like an incoming tide and is mesmerizing in and of itself.
The muffled “Apparent Lushness” sounds as if it was recorded four feet underwater, its pretty melody reminiscent of something off of Jürgen Müller’s Science of the Sea, shining through the ripples. It segues into the centerpiece “Exuberant Burning,” with Long taking a flare of feedback and making it arc across the sky like a vapor trail. A bass throbs along with the beat, and these elements all hover in place before Long adds live drums and cymbals, and moves the track forward again. A sound not unlike the distant roar of passing cars on a highway comes up, giving the track an uncanny sense of space.
After a brief interlude, the album peaks with the muscular kick of “The Flats 1975,” breaking out of the noirish mood of the previous tracks and offering up a sense of much-needed physical release. In the press materials for the album, Long noted that the months leading up to the recording of An Act of Love were “the most emotionally difficult and stressful year in my life,” which might be a sentiment shared by most people in the calendar year of 2016. But despite the darkness that intrudes in on the album—from the inky cover to the gloaming sounds within to the despairing environment in which it now enters our present day—there’s nevertheless a small kernel of hope to be gleaned. Long goes on to discuss the inspiration he got from empty city streets in the dead of night and the realization that regardless there are still people all around, as well as “the openness and possibilities that [they] can bring.” While Long only uses a steady beat and some deeply resonant chords to convey this revelation, he nevertheless moves like a poet to unearth that heartening sense of truth here.
