East Coast Tour
Summer 2025
Inner Ear Brigade is a long-running Bay Area band steeped in art-rock, experimental pop and jazz.
Their new third album, Perkunas – named for the mythic Lithuanian god of thunder – is a revelation. With intricate guitar work and unique electronic textures, IEB crafts a fresh and exciting sound steeped in the lineage of the French band Magma, the spiritual and modal explorations of John Coltrane’s later years, Olivier Messiaen’s enigmatic harmonies, Sun Ra’s cosmic orchestrations, the experimental ethos of John Cage, the free-form jazz of Hermeto Pascoal, Carnatic music, John Zorn, and J.S. Bach.
Wolter’s compositional process is instinctive, involving hours of intensive exploration of the piano and guitar, arriving at a sound that is both deeply familiar and bracingly new. Educated at Mills College under experimental-music luminaries like Fred Frith and Pauline Oliveros, Wolter brings a thoughtful and intriguing approach to the band’s sound.
The group has appeared in many forms since its inception in 2006, with a fluid lineup and dynamic arrangements. They have performed at notable festivals including Switchboard Music Festival, Outsound New Music Summit, Seaprog, Progtober Fest, and many more.
Summer Tour Dates
One of the songs on Perkunas is sung by vocalist Madeline Tasquin in Zeuhl, the vocal language originally invented by the French group Magma, conjuring mysterious, dreamlike lyrics that aren’t limited by literal meanings.
The opening track “Ecobio Curves,” which is sung in Zeuhl, is inspired by the idea that the economy and biology might be linked. “Perhaps our endless economic growth is linked to our biological nature, in that bacteria, cells, and multicellular organisms must reproduce and grow at the expense of the environment,” explains Wolter.
New Album Out Now
“Bill Wolter's Inner Ear Brigade never disappoints, having delivered eclectic takes on avant-progressive and jazz-spiced rock from the fertile Bay Area, California scene for years. On Perkunas, they have upped the stakes to include ace zeuhl touches, like on opener "Ecobio Curves" fusing the modal grooves of early Magma seamlessly with more dissonant, angular figures a la Eskaton or Eider stellaire. "Sumimasen" refines that approach to allow for a textural clarity approaching "pop". Madeline Tasquin's wonderful vocals act as a melodic instrument, gluing the band arrangement together in a way faithful to classic zeuhl, but also sounding something like Stereolab performing Glass-ian minimalism. The epic title-track forgoes zeuhl in favor of more typically "prog" structures, in places calling to mind Gentle Giant or Gabriel-era Genesis, all powered by Iberian chord sequences and a jaunty, polyrhythmic bounce.”
- Dominique Leone, Pitchfork Music Journalist, November 2024
