The separate, limited-edition companion piece, Earth 2.23 Special Lower Frequency Mix, highlights the album’s enduring influence with four new interpretations of Earth 2 by The Bug feat. Flowdan, Justin K. Broadrick (Godflesh/Jesu), Robert Hampson (Loop), Brett Netson (Built to Spill/Earth/Caustic Resin).
The widespread impact of Earth 2 suggests that others have indeed been leaning in, listening to these minutiae and making something new of them. A masterpiece without many genre precedents, Earth 2 surely helped send doom metal down its more modern drone, ambient, and avant-garde avenues. Those descendants are obvious. Perhaps more surprising and gratifying are the ways it has influenced electronic music, modern composition, and even hip-hop by realigning our senses of tempo, time, and texture. Earth 2 engendered a rearrangement of expectations, regardless of preferred form.
The new remix set, Earth 2.23: Special Lower Frequency Mix, makes this clearer than ever. The Bug has taken a bit of “Seven Angels” and laced it with feedback and big bass, allowing grime luminary Flowdan to climb atop it with his dark, staccato visions. Responsible for many transformational records himself, Justin K. Broadrick of Jesu and Godflesh crawls inside “Teeth” to lash at it with punishing drum machines and sordid layers of new distortion, building it into some brokedown palace of industrial mayhem. Loop’s Robert Hampson makes good on the premise of ambient metal with his 30-minute hypnotic beauty, while longtime Earth cohort and longtime Built to Spill multi-instrumentalist Brett Netson seems to float the sound through a benighted graveyard on his clever “Teeth” revamp.
SIDE 1:
1. Angels (The Bug Remix feat. Flowdan)
2. May Your Vanquished Be Saved from the Bondage of their Sins (Robert Hampson Remix)
SIDE 2:
3. Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine (Justin K Broadrick Remix)
4 .Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine (Brett Netson Version)
