Around this time each year, music listeners are on the hunt for their feel-good song of Summer. Today, Southern-California indie rockers, Ecstatic Union, give us exactly what we’re looking for. Their new single, “Ancient Eyes” is a refreshened take on classic psychedelic folk, with extra satisfying bubble-gum harmonies layered above roving guitar riffs and billowing drum fills. You understand how magnetic the tune is within the first 10 seconds of listening, and then realize you can’t get enough by the end of it.
On the overall influence of their work, lead singer and guitarist, Rex Costello, confides “My art reflects a journey of transformation and so I guess I could say that personal transformation, the full-spectrum experience of life, community, nature, beauty, and art-as-life are what greatly influence our work.” It’s a confirmation of what “Ancient Eyes” makes the listener feel. It speaks greatly to the spirit of joy, and gives you a reason to set aside your worries, even if simply for a minute or two. The colorful single was self-recorded by Costello in the stunning island setting of his hometown of Avalon on Catalina Island. The coveted creative has been known to play additional instruments while singing (including drums) when needed live, but has since pieced together the band with second guitarist/organist/backing vocalist, Oliver Hart, and bassist/backing vocalist, Sol.
Wanting to know more about Ecstatic Union, I spoke with Costello.
"Ancient Eyes" is a very fun, easy listen. What inspired this feel good song?
Rex: I picked up my guitar late one night and the main riff just came to me. It put me into a trance playing it over and over and I ended up writing the foundation of the song into the early hours of the morning. I sensed the record needed at least one straight-forward rock/punk tune on it and felt like I found it with Ancient Eyes. Vibe-wise, this song (along with many others on this album) was inspired by where I produced the record, in my hometown of Avalon on Catalina Island (or “Pimu”). There's a very mystic and vital energy in the land there, I believe partially because much of the Bay of Avalon has been found to be constructed over an ancient burial ground of the Pimungans (also called the Tongva & Pimuvit) who previously inhabited the Island. Lyrically, I was playing off the energy I felt in the air that night, along with the imagery of my environment and a kind of cosmically-sensual mood. That night the waning moon was sitting just between the ocean and skyline, the wind was blowing gently and I felt a kind of dream-like revery as I played the riff repeatedly into the silence of a sleeping Avalon Bay.
What is a favorite experience you've had with Ecstatic Union?
Rex: Well we've gone through a few incarnations since our original inception in 2010 but if I were to refer to our most recent formation, I’d say the period of months in 2016 when we were rehearsing, recording, and playing shows on Catalina Island was so far the most wholly memorable. It was a sort of incubatory experiment. We would rehearse in a storage container at the beach, play packed shows at 'The Locker Room' (a bar my uncle Mark owns in Avalon), swim in the bay, hike the interior of the island, busk on Front Street, and play weekly payed gigs at a local plaza. It was a pretty edenic lifestyle when I look back on it...
Where does the name "Ecstatic Union" derive from, anyhow?
Rex: The simplest answer to that is: In the early summer of 2010, I was driving back to California after my first year at Naropa University in Colorado. I was listening to a 'Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan' CD one of my professors gave me. Nusrat was a sufi qawwali singer and this album, "Great Swan", was a recording of his final live performance before he passed. It’s totally elevating and electrifying in a beautiful and embracing way. I felt uplifted and reverently connected to life in that moment and the thought flowed through me, "it’s like ecstatic union".. Then the following thought, "Whoa, that'd be a great band name.” That's basically how it came to be.
What’s one album you can’t live without?
Rex: That'd have to be between Alice Coltrane's, "Turiya Sings" and/or the self-titled album by "The Range of Light Wilderness.”
Aside from other music, what influences your art?
Rex: Aside from music, I’m influenced by my overall experience of life, art, relationships, thoughts, and emotions. Since age 16 my personal experiences of transformation, self-reflection, travel, community connection and study of ancestral wisdom traditions has heavily inspired my expression and direction in life and art. My mother and father are two highly creative, energetic, inspired humans whom have definitely impacted me on a genetic and subconscious level, I’m super grateful to be blessed with their blood in my veins.
Does the band have anything in store for us this Summer?
Rex: We're touring the Pacific Northwest (San Diego to Seattle & back) between June 22 - July 14. June 23rd marks the release of our self-titled full length with lolipop records. Our release show will be held at El Cid in Los Angeles on June 23rd with Purple Mountains Majesties and Spirit Mother.
