September 2003 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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Seascapes Of The Interior's historical fiction 29 September 2003
Australian experimental/dream rockers Seascapes Of The Interior released their mostly-instrumental debut album All Safe, All Well this past spring, as you may have read here on Rockbites back in April. As of this writing, some well-informed and lucky souls have picked up more than half of the 500-copy initial pressing. The title and musical themes on the new disc take their cues from the real-life rescue of legendary British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his shipmates during their 1915 Antarctica expedition. Shackleton’s ship Endurance remained trapped in ice from January till November of that year, when it finally sank. This soundtrack/dreamscape for the backs of your eyelids is lush with piano, strings, synths, processed guitars, and just the right touch of operatic female vocals. The result is highly emotional and engrossing, reminiscent of Louisville experimental chamber trio Rachel’s, Canadian avant-gardists Godspeed You Black Emperor!, and reminiscent as well of these bands’ pre-Krautrock predecessors including Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh. SOTI assembled All Safe, All Well from sessions in various locations around Australia over the past four years. It includes tracks recorded in a school auditorium in the middle of Otways native rain forest in Victoria, along with four-track home tapes, field samples recorded by members of the band, and some archival aboriginal recordings. Not only self-released, the limited-edition All Safe, All Well comes in handmade packaging where even the paper is designed and custom made by the band. They hand-crafted 20 sleeves a day over a span of several weeks. Talk about DIY. Adam Casey, who sings and plays guitar and e-bow for Seascapes, tells Rockbites they’ll likely re-release the disc in standard packaging. But with the amount of time and love that clearly went into the music as well as the sleeve, you may want to jump on getting a copy of the limited-edition original. You can order All Safe, All Well directly from SOTI’s website. The MP3 samples they’ve posted cannot do justice to the album, which demands to be heard with focus and in its entirety. Don’t mistake All Safe, All Well’s softness and unpretentiousness for lack of depth. Repeated listening reveals that this music is clear like still water but deep as the Antarctic seas. | Seascapes Of The Interior | | SOTI on MP3.com | | Shackleton voyage on Nova | | top of page | |
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