Sound
New Earth (EIF RMX)
1. New Earth (EIF RMX)
Buy the single:
About New Earth (EIF RMX)
5 July, 2019
In November 2018, The Companions opened up their universe. Their debut single New Earth explored the world from two pairs of alien eyes, scanning their surroundings and finding a planet that was both welcoming and hostile. Just before the single's initial launch, the title track made its way to the hands of EIF, who had previously performed with Companion R in Room Art's Incidental. Their remix, newly mastered by Disintegration State co-founder Kris Ilic (aka Lowering), is now available for all to hear.
The Companions are a transatlantic Autistic duo made up of Robin Jax (RobinPlaysChords) and Amber Bird (Varnish). EIF are a Polish duo based in Birmingham, UK. They describe their sound as "dub-influenced, experimental world electronic music". Their releases include Autumn Conversations, a collaboration with BBC Young Jazz Musician Award winner Xhosa Cole, and the Human Animal EP" released on Bit-Phalanx.
New Earth
1. Blaidd Drwg
All the motions that we are going through
On this swinging bulb of violent light
No other soul can sleep so easily at night
The waking up is better than the coming to
New skin
New earth
The soft spot of the harder truth
The worlds fall apart in a moment
Critical mass is ever closer
The light pooling in on us and over
New skin
New sounds
Same ground you're buried in
Same gravity that pulled you down
The manual override
Will only work when you die inside
But there is wonder beyond the spheres
There is joy here
There lies potential
There is memory aplenty for you when I am gone
Gone and said goodbye
To new skin
New sounds
Same ground you're buried in
Same gravity that pulled you down
Same ground you're buried in
Same gravity that pulled you down
Same ground you're buried in
Lyrics: Jax | Instruments: Jax | Vocals: The Companions
i never believed in love at first sight
i only believed in you that first night
i never believed in "nobody else"
i only believe you're all that i've felt
i never believed truth was a picture
i only believe photographs fit you
i never believed i could fall deeper
i only believe you're endless ether
your love is a curve
that rewrites my history
like i've always known you
and you've never missed me
like we are parentheses
holding the answer
and everything outside us
just doesn't matter
i never believed in someone who'd stay
i only believe you don't slip away
i never believed i'd let the doubts go
i only believe that you're all i know
Lyrics: Bird | Instruments: Jax | Vocals: The Companions
About New Earth
30 November, 2018
On New Earth, their debut single as The Companions, Robin and Amber come in peace and harmony.
After the cleansing hum of "Blaidd Drwg", arpeggios initially gleam like stars before the title track, "New Earth", is engulfed in a fiery supernova of electric guitars and clanking percussion. The Companions sing of rebirth and existence, but there is a price to pay. For all of the new, everything returns to "the same ground you're buried in / the same gravity that pulled you down", and then back to the stars from whence it came.
"New Earth" might suggest that The Companions are avowed melancholists, set apart on this plane of existence, but closer "(parentheses)" offers a warmer outlook. Organ swells move at a glacial pace as a realisation of a very human feeling is made: "your love is a curve / that rewrites my history / like I've always known you", a declaration that covers an ocean, a planet, a universe. Maybe that is only a fleeting experience, as more electric guitar scorches the remains of what came before, but its intensity leaves a permanent mark.
As the first knowingly transatlantic Autistic duo, The Companions have put a marker down with New Earth. This recording tells us of a wonderful, contradictory world that they have navigated together and alone simultaneously. Where they go from here, and the potential for others to follow, is something we should all watch very keenly.