This album is the 5th and final album in a series of elemental meditations that were begun once upon a time (we will have to do some archive archaeology when we write the linernotes for the rest of the series, apparently). Three of the other albums have already been completed and their releases are imminent. Why are we releasing the last album first? Good question. Perhaps because it is the most recent one [we believe that it was recorded in 2020] and therefore the one we still feel the most enthusiastic about? Or because of its precarious history: The first mastering of it got lost when both me and our mastering mastermind [Tomas Kulberg] suffered HDD crashes at roughly the same time, so it took us some panicking and head scratching to dig up some unmastered files and have the job done all over again. We are now relieved and happy to finally be able to present it to you, in a new, fresh mastering!

Why did we set out on this mission of recording 5 albums of elemental meditations? Well, Vera and I have been collaborating on and off since back in the late ‘90s, but there was a longish gap in the middle there. When we eventually picked up the collaboration, as it happened, the first track we made together was a rumbly, droning thing, and when we were thinking of a name to give it, we ended up with “Earthbound Spirit” [which was most likely inspired by Christopher Josiffe’s excellent book: “Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra-Special Talking Mongoose”, out on Strange Attractor Press and hereby highly recommended!], and from there the idea to record a series of albums dedicated to the various elements was sparked.

The titles and conceptual contents of these albums coalesce around shared themes and obsessions in the practices (both musical and otherwise) of Vera and myself. The elements lent themselves willingly to the explorations of these predilections and preoccupations, accommodating our musical and extramusical dialogues with ease, and resulting in what we think are satisfying documents of these ruminations and exchanges.

When it comes to the music itself, the field recordings were already present in Vera’s archives, and some of the guitar melodies had been gestating in my head for up to a couple of decades (or more!). However, the recordings themselves were made quickly, trying to retain a sense of spontaneity and letting the music unfold intuitively. It follows from this that these recordings are far from polished – you will be able to pick out a mistake here and there, moments of hesitation, glimpses of doubt, murk & hiss – to us this helps the music come alive and we want to keep it like that. Instead of a freeze dried & sterile laboratory product, this has some dirt on it, some scratches and grime, but we hope that you might agree that this might impart a degree of intimacy with the actual performances.