Eric Copeland

Eric Copeland was still in high school when he joined Black Dice, a band founded by his brother and some other students of the Rhode Island School of Design in 1997. Contributing vocals and electronics to the band in its earliest incarnation, Copeland was with Black Dice almost from their very beginning, rolling with them through various drastic stylistic changes as the years went on. While still involved with Black Dice as a main gig, Copeland started the side project Terrestrial Tones in 2004 with then roommate Dave Portner of Animal Collective. Both members of the duo's respective bands were on temporary hiatus, and they took the time as a chance to collaborate and record. In 2007 Copeland released his first solo album, Hermaphrodite, on the Paw Tracks label. The mostly instrumental album fell somewhere between the electronic experiments of Black Dice and the woozier Terrestrial Tones material, and it marked the beginning of a prolific recording schedule from Copeland. Various 7" singles, CD-Rs, and one-off releases would come regularly between proper albums, often on various independent labels. Alien in a Garbage Dump was released by Paw Tracks in 2009, followed by Strange Days (Post Present Medium) the next year. Issued by Escho in 2011, Waco Taco Combo saw Copeland's work shift into a more rhythmic dimension, employing fractured samples to add relatively straightforward beats to his always wobbly compositions. This trend followed on 2012's Limbo (Underwater Peoples) and crystallized on 2013's Joke in the Hole (DFA) with his least cloudy solo material up to that point. Further singles and EPs followed on DFA, while two mini-albums (2014's Logo My Ego and 2015's Jesus Freak) appeared on Ron Morelli's L.I.E.S. (Long Island Electrical Systems) imprint. In 2016, DFA released Copeland's mutated pop album Black Bubblegum. Two experimental techno albums followed: Brooklyn Banks (Palmetto Arts) and the double LP Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect (L.I.E.S.). In 2017, DFA released Black Bubblegum Remixed as well as the full-length Goofballs, another exploration of playful, abstract club music. ~ Fred Thomas