Dylan Carlson has used the Earth nameplate as a freq-torturer more or less since 1990, and over the years a cult has developed in worship of his music's drone. Or is it the doom? The sludge, maybe? Cultish designation depends on hair length and drugs taken. The point is, with 1993's Earth 2, Carlson and his collaborators created a no-motion masterpiece of sub-tonal metal. Its three tracks range between quarter-hour and half. They consume the Melvins, and splay Godflesh out to dry in the sun. Earth 2 adds 40,000 "f"'s onto the end of "riff," and the result drags right off the page. "Humans are present only as audience or operators." That's what the Survival Research Laboratories mission statement says. But it applies to Earth, too, 'cause this shit is a stoned and illuminated manuscript. God is not a DJ. He is an amplifier.
Legacy of Dissolution is a remix project that gathers six of Earth's most important cult members. Sanctioned by Carlson and released as a joint venture between the mighty Southern Lord and Philly's No Quarter (home of Earth's 2002 live compendium Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars), Dissolution features contributions from Mogwai, Russell Haswell, Jim O'Rourke, Autechre, Justin Broadrick, and SunnO))), the last of which famously began as an Earth cover band. (Name: Mars.) Results vary, but the overall feel is a not-unpleasant sense of thudding dread. Like, "I don't understand this, but I want to lay in it."
The original "Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine" is 27-minute pulse for guitar and bass. Mogwai manipulates that into a singular hovering tone, dropping in the plodding original recording at the four-minute mark over electronic triggers and its own manipulated atmosphere. It's Coil's Angelic Conversation, stuck on an ellipsis. Like Jim O'Rourke's lengthy meditation on the title track to Earth's Phase 3: Thrones and Dominions, it's difficult to call what Mogwai's doing metal. But the source material isn't metal, anyway. It's something stranger, maybe more modal; maybe even louder. Legacy of Dissolution proves the spectacular reach of experimental music-- whether it's Earth or Isis or Kammerflimmer Kollektief, it's open to interpretation.
Reinterpret they do. Russell Haswell's "Tibetan Quaaludes [Waveset Sloth Mix]" runs the original's solitary resonating guitar through some kind of horrible and scary processing program \xD0 the garbled, lurching, and totally fantastic result sounds like a sadistic biker movie on the wrong speed. Autechre retains the main riff of "Coda Maestoso in F [Flat] Minor" (from Earth's last official album, 1996's Pentastar: In the Style of Demons). However their version is slowly taken over by reflective plinking until there's only that bass line, the one built for stoned head nodding. The final, epic section will make David Gilmour weep openly.
Legacy of Dissolution's final position is owned by SunnO))). Its sixteen minutes are probably the closest this set gets to Earth's original template; like their origins, it feels more like a tribute than a remix. But "Rule the Divine [Mysteria Caelestis Mugiv]" is one of the collection's strongest moments, a dreary roar of open maw guitars and the echoes of drums from some far off cavern. This is sludge; this is primordial. Then at about six minutes in, things drop out. A pause, and then the report of one guitar. This goes on for awhile, and you might forget yourself. But then it's back, a monstrous squalling tone coming from the amp where God lives, and He's angry. Well, what are you going to do about it, stoner?
