Ex-Easter Island Head
Ex-Easter Island Head (2009-) are a Liverpool based musical collective composing and performing music for solid-body electric guitar, percussion and other instruments. Primarily performing as a trio, the group incorporate multiple prepared electric guitars struck with percussion mallets to create works that explore group interplay, repetition and melodic invention through purposefully limited means. They have performed their original compositions solo, as a duo, trio, quartet and as a large ensemble across a wide variety of events from site specific installation works to live film scores.
Their records have received significant critical acclaim from the likes of The Wire, Pitchfork, the Quietus and the New York Times and airplay on the BBC, ABC (Australia) and WQXR (New York) with their music favourably compared to the likes of Steve Reich, Brian Eno and Claude Debussy.
Performances have occurred in diverse venues, from the tiny Scottish island of Iona to the largest cathedral in Britain, including concerts with William Basinski, Dieter Moebius, Colin Stetson, Rhys Chatham and Charlemagne Palestine, and collaborations with up to thirty musicians in large scale performances ranging from 16-piece guitar ensembles to string and wind ensembles.
In late 2013 the group were invited to write and perform new work at Tokyo Experimental Festival and undertook a tour of Japan. Other festival commissions have included Les Urbaines (Switzerland) and Manchester Jazz Festival (UK).
In 2014 they collaborated with musicians from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to create new music mixing prepared guitars with chamber ensemble and gave a series of sellout performances of the piece Large Electric Ensemble, including appearances at Cafe Oto and Supersonic Festival.
In 2015 they collaborated with the BBC Philharmonic on a new piece.
2016 sees the release of a new Ex-Easter Island Head album, Twenty Two Strings, and tours as a trio and in a new collaboration with revered US minimalist Arnold Dreyblatt.