ToE's Ambient Otherworld in the English Countryside
Last July we published a special podcast episode and the blog entry below about ToE (i.e. Theory of Everything). This guitar twosome came out of nowhere with their self-titled first album to gain popularity in the streaming digiverse for their enigmatic industrial-ambient-psychedelic-experimental rock creations.
Now, we’re pleased to announce the release of their second album, Way Out. This record picks up where the first left off. Highlights include three extended improvs, “Lincoln Highway,” “Lampost” and “Mindfield.”
This month’s edition of the Right Brain Music Podcast features a dynamic experimental music duo from a back corner of England. They call themselves ToE. Listen to the podcast here.
ToE hails from Scunthorpe, a small steel town in Lincolnshire. Ian Johnson and Sean Wood play electric guitars, aided by a battery of deceptively simple effects that they’ve mastered over many years playing together. Their self-titled first album, available on Right Brain Records, contains six pieces that they spontaneously improvised and recorded live. They’ve forged a unique, otherworldly sound that evokes vintage electronic, modern guitar experimentation and psychedelic rock. As they describe it, their music is influenced by the ambient industrial sounds of their environment: “blast furnaces and tribal rhythms of pounding machinery hanging over the landscape and seeping into the imagination.”
ToE’s music has seeped into many imaginations; ToE, the album, is the most popular on digital streaming of any in RBR’s catalogue. Their seductive, mysterious soundscapes have struck a chord with listeners—which is ironic because they don’t actually play chords in any recognizable sense.
The island of Great Britain is well known to be haunted. In the podcast we talk to Sean about ToE’s unique approach and hear generous samples of the duo’s mind-bending sorcery.
For more about ToE, click here.
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