EARTH BALL (CAN) + DUO DIRAR KALASH (PSE) & LUKE STEWART (US, Irreversible Entanglements/David Murray 4tet)

EARTH BALL (can) _A Dreamscape of Improvised Psychosis_ Heavyweight psychedelic weirdo improvisers **Earth Ball** are back with their third and most monstrous record to date: _**Outside Over There**_, released on **Upset The Rhythm**. Born from the haunted basements of Nanaimo and Vancouver Island, the quintet thrives on spontaneity, shaping improvisation into jagged dreamscapes and ecstatic eruptions. Recorded live-off-the-floor in 2024 in **Jeremy**, **Izzy**, and **Kellen**’s basement, and mixed by drummer **John Brennan**, _Outside Over There_ is an album that feels both summoned and inevitable. Each track lands with uncanny purpose, as if uncovered rather than written. The opener, _100%_, features a cameo from **comedian and English icon Stewart Lee**, who lent his blessing for the band to use a fragment of his stand-up. The album was mastered by **John Dieterich** (**Deerhoof**), with liner text contributed by longtime comrade **John Olson** (**Wolf Eyes**). **Olson** describes the album in his unmistakable style: “_This eight-track odyssey unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven-minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher.”_ **Earth Ball’s** trajectory has been relentless. Their 2024 LP _It’s Yours_ was praised by _The Quietus_ as “fully aggressive and fully life-affirming,” while their live double set _Actual Earth Music Vol. 1 & 2_ (2025) captured blistering performances: a support slot with **Wolf Eyes** at the Fox Cabaret, and a **Café OTO** residency featuring **Chris Corsano** and **Steve Beresford**. Their work has been lauded by _The Wire_ and _The Quietus_ alike, confirming them as one of Canada’s most vital experimental exports. The band’s reach has stretched far beyond their west coast roots: in June 2025, **Earth Ball** closed Montreal’s **Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival** alongside **Wolf Eyes** and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer **Raven Chacon**, and this November they appear at **Le Guess Who? Festival** in Utrecht, with a European tour spanning the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Italy. Outside of **Earth Ball**, each member carries their own torch: **Jeremy Van Wyck** (Mongst, Crotch, Psychedelic Dirt) remains a cornerstone of Vancouver’s no wave underground; **John Brennan** collaborates widely, with projects including **Endlings** (with **Raven Chacon** and **John Dieterich**), **Plan Your Future** (with **Greg Saunier** of **Deerhoof**), and new albums with **Chris Corsano** and **Dieterich**. This cross-pollination fuels **Earth Ball’s** sound — a collective improvisation haunted by ghosts, yet alive with electricity. _Outside Over There_ is not simply another album — it is a ritual, a gathering of sound at the forest’s edge, where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. Earth Ball invite you into their circle, to share in the joyful terror of spontaneous creation. **DUO KALASH (PSE) & STEWART (US, Irreversible Entangelments/David Murray 4tet)** **DIRAR KALASH** is a musician and sound artist whose work spans a wide range of musical and sonic practices within a variety of compositional and improvisational contexts. His performative and compositional approaches to instruments, techniques, and aesthetics are highly political as they challenge dichotomies, hierarchies, and binary logics of new/old and west/east as tools of cultural imperialism and hegemony. The methods he uses are based upon his research into the intersections and relationships of music and sound with other contexts such as language, architecture, mathematics, visual arts and further social and human sciences. His regular solo and collaborative performances include but are not limited to audio-visual performances, free jazz groups, electro-acoustic ensembles, analoge electronics (“experimental / noise”), and solo piano and oud projects. [https://albayan.bandcamp.com](https://albayan.bandcamp.com) **LUKE STEWART** has emerged as one of the most exciting young bassists on the improvised music scene on the east coast. Based in Washington, DC, he plays regularly in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and has toured in Europe. He has gained considerable exposure playing with the **James Brandon Lewis Trio** and he also leads or co-leads his own projects including **Ancestral Duo** with **Jamal Moore** and **Heart of the Ghost** with **Ian McColm** and **Jarrett Gilgore**. As a solo artist, he has composed a series of improvisational structures for upright bass and amplifier, utilizing the resonant qualities of the instrument to explore new sounds. He has also been integral to the literary jazz group **Heroes Are Gang Leaders**. He is as well part of **Irreversible Entanglements** jazz band.