E Announce 2024 European and U.S. Summer Tours

E’s fifth full-length record, Living Waters, was recorded in late December 2023 at Rare Signals in Cambridge, MA, by longtime engineer (and Tape Op Magazine columnist) Andy Hong and mixed and mastered in Prague by Ondřej Ježek at jáMOR Studio.

Living Waters is the culmination of a year’s worth of remote and in-person collaboration between Thalia Zedek and Ernie Kim in Boston, MA, and Jason Sanford in Boulder, CO.

Thalia explains:

“It is the first record written with our new drummer Ernie Kim. “And as a collaborative (force), a new member means changes.”

Incorporating new approaches in her search for sounds, Thalia Zedek came up with:

“A combination of frequencies that I call guitar-bass and I’m excited to be touring with my new set-up and incorporating both past and present sounds and songs into our performances.”

New approaches and instrumentations are the guiding ethos here. For Living Waters, Zedek adds an extra pickup to her guitar, running it through an octave pedal so that she can play both guitar and bass simultaneously. Sanford’s feverishly-built new pedals and “instruments” bulk up his arsenal of sounds, and Kim’s multi-instrumental talent gets deployed: he’s both the saxophonist and the drummer on the title track and the lead vocalist on two others.

E US Summer Tour 2024 Admat

At heart, the changes in equipment and approach represent a recommitment to the democratic and collective ideals of shared labour on which the band was founded; all members take on shifting responsibilities within a kaleidoscope of sounds, and none are relegated to a fixed or unalterable role.

Jason Sanford comments:

“Living Waters represents an evolution in sound for E. It is a fuller, and more fully interwoven sound than previous albums, and as such, declares a movement toward the democratic and collective ideals on which the band was founded. We have never had a band leader, and we have always taken decisions together.”

E 2024 Tour US and Europe Admat

Mutual support of their artistic endeavours pushed the evolution of the songwriting process. According to Jason:

“Each of the three supports the others’ personal visions, but none of the three are confined to expressively limiting roles. That is to say, there is no bass player; we all share and take responsibility for different parts of the sonic spectrum at different times.”

In these nine explosive new songs, Zedek and Sanford continue to develop the dense warp and weft of guitar interplay that has characterized their work to date while the songwriting dynamics continue to evolve. With the addition of newest member Kim’s aggressive and musical drumming, what E delivers here is both taut and driven, creating shimmering new constellations of sound. Order Living Waters in the EU from Silver Rocket.