I'm sure that anyone reading this has some album or song that immediately floods them with vivid nostalgia. Upon hearing the opening few seconds of the record one is brought back to a very specific time and place. "Extra-Capsular Extraction," the first album by Seattle drone pioneers, Earth, holds many memories for me. It is 1991 and grunge and Sub Pop are king, but most of these flannel-wrapped ass candles fail to hold my interest. Hey, what's this? It's a record on Sub Pop without an exciting Charles Peterson photo of a not-so-exciting band playing live. Get a load of that cover, will you? That double-pupiled eye, the simple, sterile layout, and the small print across the top that reads "Postgraduate Seminars:Eye Surgery-Concepts and Problems PRODUCED BY EARTH AND THE EXCERPTA MEDICA." More appropriated medical texts adorn the back cover, making the whole package and aesthetic very similar to another record that caught my attention the same year: Carcass' "Necroticism Descanting The Insalubrious." My housemates and I would do whip-its to the crushing sound of Earth's gravitational pull and when I listen to this today, my lips still get cold. This "postgraduate seminar" consists of three droning monoliths, and there is even a guest appearance by a young guy named Kurt Cobain who had some kind of band in the '90s. I don't know.
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Holy shit! I keep seeing this in the record store. I always wondered if it was good or bad.
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So this is where it all started...
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