here is the info file from Indietorrents
from fakejazz:
The legacy of The No-Neck Blues Band is incredible. Few bands ever have been as enigmatic, mysterious, uncompromising, or genuinely loveable as NNCK has over their long life time. This double CD reissue is from ten years ago and they’d already been freaking NYC out for four years before that. NNCK and the equally incredible Charalambides preempted your favorite psych-folkies by, oh I don’t know, more than a decade. So much of they way you’ll hear this album is informed by realizing how current it sounds despite it’s long period of fermentation. There are tons of people and labels out there pumping out shit (it’s not shit, you guys know I buy your records and love you long time) that owes so much to the ideas NNCK pioneered in a time so long ago by current chronological paces. God bless them.
But this album… I won’t lie to you: It’s weird. I’m telling you that this is a weird album and that I love NNCK. I love NNCK with all of heart and began listening to this knowing full well what to expect. Letters From The Earth is long. Really long. Nearly two hours long. And there are only six songs. Hell, two of the tracks take up two thirds of that running time on their own. Knowing long before I got it of the behemothic nature of the set, I was giddy to think of a single NNCK jam lasting nearly forty minutes. I’m sure that you, dear friends, have a favorite face of the NNCK die just like I do (bear in mind it’s one of those way-nerdy tabletop RPG D20s). I think our respective favorite sides are the same, though: It’s the side that finds them encased in rhythm and deep chanting and spare clicking of guitars and thumping. Everyone loves this, and how could they not? The NNCK here is, however, more free. Much more free. The most free they’ve ever been. Letters From The Earth is the textural droning face that makes so many NNCK tracks so inviting not only pushed to the forefront and isolated, but magnified Hubble-style.
The first disc finds NNCK exploring the more acoustic side of the drone. Lots of elongated horns and cymbal ether. It’s laid-back and eveloping; the only moment of classic NNCK tension comes from the clatter conclusion of forty minute monster "Isopropyl Ocean." All of it is a little uneasy feeling, sure, but once you’ve become acquainted with No-Neck that’s a trait that endears you to them. Disc two is the stronger of the two discs if only for the stunning "John The Baptist." The works on disc two are more electrified; sounds are strangled through pedals and busted amps. "John The Baptist" is nothing short of a career highlight for a storied and classic band. It’s the only track on the album in which drums are used rhythmically (percussion other than cymbals is rare on the rest of this bad boy) and the morphing and shifting deepbeat is the centerpiece on which some of NNCK’s most interesting and creepy noises eek about. Thank God it’s thirty-eight minutes long. The two monsterous tracks here are where the meat is, both in expanse and content, and each are supported by two shorter tracks which put their larger siblings into context.
Both on its original release and again on its tin anniversary, the band certainly makes it clear that the labels which have put out Letters From The Earth are of the opinion that "out-of-nowhere double album magnum opuses tend to go on to have genre defining significance." I do think that this album has helped plenty of genre defining but for No-Neck’s magnum opus I still look to Sticks and Stones… or even last year’s laser-focused Qvaris before Letters. Letters is, however, a strange album in a discography of nothing but strange releases and it’s idiosyncracy alone warrants it’s purchase to veteran No-Neck fans. Not to mention it’s really fucking good.