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Eternal Void - Moon Sliver - ©1977. (0:00) 1. Pirates Puppet (14:50) 2. The Black Stream (19:22) 3. Devils Workshop (23:01) 4. Peasant Song (24:33) 5. Sliver (34:13) 6. A Face At The Window... A Mind At The Door (36:51) 7. Overburden Stone (40:00) 8. Dance Of Lunacy ^^^^^^^ Click on the blue time in parentheses before the song number to play that song. Jeff Fasula: Basses, electric piano, guitar. Joe Fasula: Drums, xylophone, sounds, percussion. Craig P. Smith: Mellotron, synthesizer, effects, accidental guitars. Guest: Rob Bradley: autoharp, Radio Free Moscow, guitar squeak on Sliver. Mark Fasula: Admirable restraint. Eternal Void was formed in 1975 by Rockford (Illinois) West High School friends, Jeff and Joe Fasula & Craig P. Smith. NEUTRAL EARTH started in 2017 as an attempt to revive Eternal Void after 42 years. But cancer took Jeff from us, and another band was using the name Eternal Void, so Joe and Craig changed the name to NEUTRAL EARTH and continued as a duo. Eternal Void began as an experimental musical improvisation group. With Jeff on bass guitar, Joe on drums, and Craig on whatever was available to make noise with, the Fasula family console organ was popular until Craig got his own keyboards. Eternal Void was not your average High School rock band. E.V. recorded 4 albums in 1975 on Jeff & Joe's older brother's 8-Track cartridge recorder and would give them to friends. Two Years later, with the addition of Craig's new Mellotron M400 and better recording techniques using Reel-to-Reel and Cassette overdubbing, Moon Sliver was completed on March 13th, 1977. The music is moody, soft, heavy, spacey, strange and beautifully melodic. It would be the last Eternal Void album. 1. Pirates Puppet (14m52s) With Jeff on bass, using his new envelope follower pedal, Joe on the Slingerland drums, and Craig on the Mellotron (Cello / Strings / Flute) run thru a Morley Phase Pedal. When the improv drifts into unsavory seas, we overdub a Mellotron cello solo aboard a creaky pirate ship, complete with hungry Sea Gulls. Robert Fripp once said “Tuning a Mellotron doesn’t”. So Craig got to play with the pitch knob a lot. 2. The Black Stream (4m38s) A nice, mellow number, with Jeff on the Farfisa Professional Piano, Joe on the xylophone, and Craig on the Mellotron strings. Don’t get your feet wet. 3. Devils Workshop (3m53s) This was our first attempt to “jam” with ourselves using the Sony TC-377 Tapecorder “Sound on Sound” recording feature. The tape heads were not in sync, causing the “echo feedback delay”. After listening to it, we thought it sounded like hell. As we stopped recording, old guitar and synthesizer experiments I had tried, (at a different tape speed) revealed their demonic heads. In the end, we thought it sounded kinda cool, and left it that way. 4. Peasant Song (1m33s) This Mellotron solo was going to be the intro to a two or three part song with Rob Bradley playing acoustic guitar. But, we never got the other parts finished. Rob left, and joined another band. 5. Sliver (9m40s) A dark , moody space jam with sound effects, PAiA synthesizer sounds, and a Mellotron (Boys Choir / Strings / Gongs) run thru a Morley Echo pedal. I think Joe even “plays” a comb in there. Rob Bradley does the Radio Free Moscow voice before we bust into a massively heavy Bass, Drums and PAiA Synth explosion. Jeff’s Fender Precision Bass run thru a Univox Super Fuzz was an awesome, devastating and deafening sound. 6. A Face At The Window... A Mind At The Door (2m38s) A somber, perhaps insane person gazes out the open window. The Mellotron cello leads the way on this percussively laced improv. That’s Joe on “vocals”, drums, cymbals, dropped objects and things hit with drum sticks. We liked to make noise with anything in the room that sounded cool. 7. Overburden Stone (3m09s) As Jeff and Joe blast out a Fuzz Bass and Drum jam, Craig coaxes raspy waveforms from his PAiA 2720 modular synthesizer. After things settle down, Craig plays some phase shifted Mellotron violins. 8. Dance Of Lunacy (2m57s) An experimental sound collage by Craig. Armed with his Mellotron, (Gongs on echo, pitch bend String birds and Choir) a Radio Shack Sound Effects record (vinyl LP), and our High School Art teacher’s folk record, (among other things), “I layered sounds as I went from reel to reel to cassette and back again.“ If you found us via Planet Mellotron, every song has Mellotron except Devils Workshop. #mellotron #progrock #experimentalmusic #progressiverock #NeutralEarth
