I’m very excited to have received my copy of The Eternals’ latest release, Approaching the Energy Field. If you’re not familar with their music, here’s the scoop: there are all manner of things cooking in their pot (dub, punk, jazz, soul, hip-hop, etc.) but what they serve up is far greater than its ingredients. This is first-rate music, amenable to any listener who cares as much about music as s/he does the broader state of things.
Damon Locks and Wayne Montana have been playing together for over two decades, and though they’ve occasionally performed and recorded in groups extending beyond their current duo lineup, this new set of tunes strikes me as their finest work to date, not only for its performances, arrangements, and guest players, but further because they’ve hit their stride as a directorial unit, equally adept and focused at every stage of this record’s development, from writing to arranging to recording to mixing. Provocative, thoughtful, driving, ambitious, urgent – this record is an event.