Introducing ... Heaven and Earth Association

Aside from a Bandcamp page, which suggests Heaven and Earth Association is a two-piece from Portland, Oregon, and a Facebook page that does little more than confirm as much, the vast expanse of the internet offers me nothing in my quest for more information about this rather beguiling musical project.

It probably doesn’t help that Heaven and Earth Association is one of the least google-able band names ever, more so if your goal is to sift the wheat from the chaff as quickly as possible. It might not even be a two-piece. It might be a solo project with an occasional helper. Or a side-project connected to another band - who can really say?

What I can say is the album released by the project in December 2019, the curiously titled 4849:1, was one of my most played lockdown musical excursions. Picked up after a tip from Fabrizio Lusso via his ever reliable WhiteLight//WhiteHeat website.

As with a lot of stuff on that site, 4849:1 is a retro-styled journey into the netherworlds of post-punk, synthpop, and coldwave, and very much to my own personal taste. 4849:1 consists of eight tracks, some of which appear to have been recorded as long ago as 2017, with the highlights being the intoxicating opener ‘Repeating Pattern’ (how is that not a sleeper indie hit?), ‘Run! Don’t Walk’, and an excellent OMD cover, ‘Almost’. The bonus being that it’s a name-your-price download. Grab one.