Asa Osburne continues to carve out a niche for himself with Earth Grid. When I first heard this, I had a hard time thinking why exactly I liked it. Perhaps it had to do with the unabashedly lo-fi blunt style of the recording. Or could it be he takes an extremely slow, deliberate approach to his music. However you want to interpret this, it is a real grower.
Using the most basic elements (drone, extremely dusty drum machine) he manages to create a warm, almost optimistic sound. Walking with this on, I felt the music began to make me feel better, it calmed me down. At no point does Zomes try to shock you with any loud sounds or a tempo which would indicate consciousness. Instead, he decides to let you focus on the drone melodies with extremely simple drum beats (in this recording they function more as a metronome than as a real beat per se).
I enjoy how he uses extremely dated equipment for this album. He doesn’t feel the need to really expand the palette beyond the most basic of melody and progression. While this might annoy some listeners, it comes across as unusually soothing music. Pieces of rock, krautrock, and drone can be found within these 41 odd minutes.
For me, the longer songs work better as they show off the fruits of this dedication. By far the best track on this short album is “Alec’s Anthem” where the long length reveals a real knack for writing slowly shifting songs. Generally speaking, the longer track lengths do a better job of exploring the many variations of a single loop.
Consider this lo-fi meditative music. Zomes manages to make something apparently so simple into something with a great deal of heart and soul.