Earlimart get together, grow up, stop looking back

PHOTO by DREW REYNOLDS

Heading for Los Angeles from California’s Central Valley, 70 miles south of Fresno on Highway 99, you see the signs that lead to the town of Earlimart. To founder and frontman Aaron Espinoza, those signs mean you’ve left Fresno and you’re on your way to something better.

It’s a classic case of hometown resentment. Espinoza was born in Fresno, and he’s never forgiven the city for his upbringing. “I feel like I’m one of the only people to get out alive,” he told a Central Valley publication. “Fresno will kill you.” He goes on: Fresno stole his car, didn’t care about his music and got so hot it turned people homicidal. But Fresno spared Espinoza. In 1996, he moved south to start with Ariana Murray a band he called Earlimart—hopeful, you see, a sign of escape.

Earlimart was heavier then. Albums like Filthy Doorways—their first—alternate between quieter-than-quiet acoustic and a harsh, processed punk that seems  to be a vent for the Fresno-born rage Espinoza still harbored. “We started kind of as loud, noisy and yelling,” he says. “I was doing my best Frank Black.” “Punk Roecker” is a layer of fuzz as thick as Tule fog settling over each drum, guitar and vocal—fast, quick and noisy no-fi punk that clocks in just under the two-minute mark. The effect is disorienting, but inventive enough to keep you listening through every demolished guitar strum.

Earlimart’s later work is quieter and worlds more plaintive—in many ways representational of the dark times the band members faced. Espinoza recorded 2003’s sleepy and distant Everyone Down Here not long after he got news of friend Doug Kratz’s death in the plane crash in the Bahamas that took Aaliyah’s life. It’s probably no mere coincidence that Espinoza recorded most of the album locked alone inside the windowless Ship—a Los Angeles recording and rehearsal studio he operates with Irving, Pine Marten and the Silversun Pickups. He rarely saw daylight, he says. The opening track “We’re So Happy (We Left The Piano In The Truck)” sets the album’s tone, with slow and muted drums backing up overdriven guitar chords and cello and synth flourishes, like a stripped down, slower ELO. It’s repetitive, incantatory: Espinoza chants the song’s title (minus the parenthetical part) long enough that, were it not for the song’s decidedly dark tone, you’d believe him. Similarly, 2004’s Treble and Tremble is cloudy and stark Sparklehorse-brand creatively recorded folk, written in the wake of friend and collaborator Elliott Smith’s suicide.

“He told me he wanted to do eventually some stuff with me at the Ship,” says Espinoza. “That was the last time I actually spoke with him.”

The last two Earlimart releases—Mentor and Tormentor and Hymn and Her—are group efforts, incorporating more musicians along with writing and arrangement contributions from Murray. The result is more diverse and uplifting than previous releases. “Before It Gets Better” (from Hymn and Her) features Murray singing a slow, bright song with sunny major chords. Tape strings and Mellotrons channel the Zombies—if the Zombies were more straightforward and far happier. Earlimart’s cheerful and collectivist new direction is an encouraging sign that—for them—suffering, like Fresno, is optional.

EARLIMART WITH PARSON REDHEADS DETROIT BAR | 843 W 19TH ST | COSTA MESA 92627 | 949.642.0600 SAT 9PM | $10 | 21+ | DETROITBAR.COM

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