photo credit: Marta

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Live Collaboration in Calamitous Times

San Diego trio Earthless’ latest offering, Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, is comprised of only two songs, which were recorded live and somehow still clock in at over an hour. “It’s like a musical story,” says guitarist Isaiah Mitchell. “It’s like a soundtrack for a book or a movie in my mind.”

Mitchell—who also joined The Black Crowes in 2019 and has remained part of their touring lineup—formed Earthless in 2001 with bassist Mike Eginton and drummer Mario Rubalcaba. The three men quickly realized that they shared a passion for Japanese psychedelic-rock and German krautrock, and started turning heads thanks to their lengthy psychedelic compositions and deep improvisations. Over Earthless’ 20-year career, the trio’s releases have arrived much like their songs—inspired, visual, spontaneous and rooted in the now.

Night Parade of One Hundred Demons was created in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic— after Mitchell moved back to San Diego from the Bay Area the night before the lockdown kicked in. Though they couldn’t start recording until that summer, all the pieces were already in place for a new Earthless tale. “The song starts like a beautiful, peaceful, serene village. It is like a sunset—it’s nice, everything’s good. And then all of a sudden—boom,” Mitchell says. “Hell opens up, the demons emerge and then they wreak havoc.”

Eginton’s artistic direction amplified the visual nature of the record. For example, the bassist meticulously illustrated the cover art for Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. “Mike came in with the idea of the yōkai [a Japanese ogre or demon] and that was it,” Mitchell recalls. “And we were like, ‘Oh, shit, [the image] is awesome!’ We started actually composing the final pieces for that song around that visual aspect.”

While one could interpret the instrumental piece as heavy or calamitous sounding, Mitchell insists it was not intentional. “By no means were we angry; we were all just very excited to be in the room.”

The record is not only a reaction to the pandemic but also to their last LP, 2018’s Black Heaven. While many musicians were forced to learn how to collaborate in new ways during the pandemic, Earthless had already been working remotely before things went south. Mitchell’s residency in the Bay Area forced the musicians to shape the record’s tracks from afar, resulting in an album that followed a much more traditional, shorter-song format and spotlighted the guitarist’s vocals.

In a return to form, Night Parade of One Hundred Demons loops back to Earthless’ epic, live, instrumental soundscapes. “There’s a lot of energy that came out when we finally got together,” Mitchell says of finding his bandmates. “There was something definitely there, subliminally.”