G. W. Hill’s Earth: Part Two is Back in Print

Aug. 20, 2012 - PRLog -- Earth: Part Two was originally released on cassette in 1990. The pieces of music presented on the disc were recorded more as images in the form of sound than as “music.” They were recorded with primitive recording equipment, and that means the sound quality is not up to current standards. The disc, along with the first part, was originally released in 1990 as a double cassette tape album and was meant to showcase the dangers presented by destruction of the environment.

When it was first released on CD (the disc has been out of print since the fall of 2011), Scott Montgomery said this at Music Street Journal, “This is the second part of a lengthy, double-CD tone poem meditating upon environmental crisis and the Earth’s fate in humanity’s hands.  (Part 1 will be reviewed separately).  The entirety of Earth Parts 1 and 2 consists of 24 Impressions.  The second CD - Part 2 is broken up into 9 short Impressions, ranging from 2:33 to 7:00.  As with Earth Part 1, the pieces are entirely played by Gary Hill – predominantly on keyboard with sequenced electronic beats and some occasional guitar.  The pace tends toward slow, almost meditative space music.  But if it is meditative, it is a desolate, discomforting meditation.  As with the Part 1, Earth – Part 2, forces a more existential meditation upon the immediacy of socio-ecological action.  Again, like its prequel, Earth – Part 2 is more an electronic soundscape experiment than it is a traditionally composed song cycle.  It sounds very much like the soundtrack to a film – and more of a Sci-Fi than terrestrially-centered epic.  There is a sparse, minimal quality to the composing that would seem to work best as an accompanying audio compliment to a visual presentation such as film or dance.  It seems intended to evoke imagery as might be the case with experimental multi-media installations.  It is more suggestive than explicit in terms of invoking any particular story-line, though the sub-titles of several impressions do give a sense of an overarching structure that begins with an invocation of a small planet in space, moving on to specific eco-systemic disasters and extinction at the hands of humanity.  3 of the 9 Impressions bear subtitles which help guide the suggestive of this loose narrative structure.  The overall tone and color are somewhat dark and unsettling, as is appropriate given the ominous theme of the aftermath of the Earth’s destruction…”
This was originally released (both the cassette version and the first CD release) under the name “Gary Hill.” Since then Hill has started using the name “G. W. Hill” for all his professional work.G. W. Hill began playing music at age 15, starting on bass guitar. In addition to performing music, Hill is a published author (The Strange Sound of Cthulhu: Music Inspired by the Writing of H. P. Lovecraft and Strange Realities: The Collected Short Stories of Gary Hill) and a music journalist.

Earth: Part Two  is currently available exclusively at createspace.com/2062265, but will be available at Amazon.com within the next week or so.