Have you ever had a release in your hands where the anticipation is such that you just can’t quite bring yourself to listen to it; not for fear that it can’t live up to the lofty ideals your imagination has cast for it, but rather because it’s something for which you’ve been waiting so long, you simply don’t want to waste that precious experience of hearing it for the first time? This was the case for me with the debut album from Drink the Sea. A release for which I had waited months, when it arrived, I placed it on the side and then found myself creating any number of excuses not to drop it in the player.
A little context.
Drink The Sea brings together the remarkable talents of Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Duke Garwood (Mark Lanegan), Alain Johannes (Q.O.T.S.A., Puscifer), Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees, Mad Season), and Lisette Garcia (Barrett Martin Group). With R.E.M, Screaming Trees, and Q.O.T.S.A all among my favourite bands of all time, the initial announcement of the line up felt like nothing less than my musical stars aligning. As such, it felt only fitting to find a time when it was possible to sit back and listen uninterrupted – not always the easiest task!
The formats
As befits a group of artists with such a remarkable shared legacy, Drink the Sea skipped the usual tentative dipping of toes into the commercial water and simply went all in with a double album. Boasting a total of twenty-two tracks (eleven on each disc), in today’s attention-span deficit world, it is an act that can either be viewed as one of supreme confidence or sublime folly (or perhaps a combination of the two) but, from the moment you place volume I in the player, it’s clear that this talented group of artists quickly identified a unique musical chemistry.
For physical music fans (who, let’s face it, are likely to be the band’s target demographic), the albums can be purchased as a double set, housed in an attractive digipack, with Duke Garwood’s paintings adorning both front and back, and liner notes spread across the inside. More recently, a double vinyl edition has emerged in gatefold packaging, with the same design. It looks amazing and can be ordered here:
Disc 1
It’s a cold, misty November morning and I’ve finally found the courage to place the disc in the player. In an era where everything is available instantaneously, this may seem unusual, but some music is meant to be felt, and I didn’t want to diminish the impact of Drink The Sea by listening piecemeal or at a time when disturbance was likely.
From the moment the opening track, Shaking for The Snakes emerges from the speakers, it’s a deeply emotional experience. Mixing world influences, jazz, and elements of latter-day Screaming Trees, the richly textured music draws on so wide a range of influences as to be completely unique. It’s followed by Saturn Calling, an unexpectedly funky lounge number nailed by an immense tribal beat from Barrett. It’s the sound of a creatively unfettered band clearly revelling in one another’s company, and it sounds amazing. Is it what I expected? No. it’s so much more – richer, wider in scope, and unencumbered by notions of genre loyalty, making it a genuinely fresh and engaging body of work.
Having established their approach, Drink the Sea indulge in the gentle Americana of Outside Again – all rippling guitar and syncopated rhythms – the music evoking images of the wide-open American landscape, while the vocal imagines the late, great Mark Lanegan channelling Jim Morrison. In contrast, House of Flowers finds Barrett exploring the range of percussion he has at his command to combine the haunted back alleys of Mad Season with the world music that informed his recent Singing Earth TV series. It is something special to hear this exceptional group of musicians stepping outside of their comfort zone to explore the wide world of music and not just the confines of their own cultural canvas, their obvious excitement elevating this album from the everyday to the realms of high art.
A slower piece, Pour Your Glow On nods to the direction that Q.O.T.S.A. have recently taken with their stunning Catacombs shows, all crooning vocals and liquid guitar. It leaves you drifting, until the unexpectedly vibrant Land of Spirits pulls you in an entirely different direction. While not exactly heavy, it still conveys a sense of weight via the tension inherent in the performance and, with its layered vocals and a punishing beat, it feels very much as if it were cut entirely live. One of those rare tracks that evolves in front of the listener, when the band add in Marrakech vibes in the second half, it positively explodes from the speakers with a vitality that proves irresistible. With the preceding track having awoken something within Drink the Sea, the expansive Tuareg Asteroid steps even further into the unknown. Few mainstream artists have the inclination or the opportunity to explore so wide a range of sounds (with, perhaps, Peter Gabriel being a rare exception) and, to hear the joy with which Drink the Sea engage with the unfamiliar is heartening indeed.
Heading back to rather more familiar territory, the syncopated rhythms and jangling guitars of The Strangest Season has a strong Mad Season thread running through it. In contrast, the airy, evocative Paredes is an instrumental piece that takes us deep into the heart of the jungle, barefoot and alone as the green canopy slowly bears down upon us, the soundtrack one-part Vangelis, one-part Itsari.
Following their brief trip into a heart of darkness, Drink the Sea offer the understated and rather lovely Where We Belong, Barrett eschewing drums altogether to explore the breadth of his percussive collection. The disc then concludes withEmbers, as piece that draws on techniques outside of the Western paradigm, the result a mesmerising, semi-ambient piece that seems to float in the air, somewhere just in front of the speakers.
Disc 2
It’s a few days later that I return to the album, largely because it took some time to absorb the first volume, and this was hardly a review to rush. Eventually, however, it was time to move on and so, in the midst of a violent storm, I was able to draw the curtains, lock out the elements, and drift once again into another world.
The disc opens with the Middle Eastern-tinged Sacred Tree, all wordless vocals and jazz inflections, courtesy of Duke Garwood, Lisette Garcia, and Alain Johannes who, between them, add saxophone, clarinet, the Arabic Oud, a range of percussive devices, and lord knows what else to the mix. Genuine polymaths all, they simply let their muse wonder where it will, and it makes for an engaging start.
In contrast, Sweet as A Nut returns to the dark blues of Screaming Trees, the subtle stabs of guitar and crooned baritone vocals set against a dreamy haze of post-rock atmospherics. It’s followed by the slinky Bembe for Two, which offers an airy vocal harmony, slivers of piano, and shuffling percussion, all of which draw you towards the rather lovely Mouth of The Whale – a track with a strong R.E.M. vibe in the arrangement and the acoustic guitars that drive it.
The album heads back into smokier territory with Rose Crested Sky, as a surging guitar riff slowly pulses beneath rippling guitar and somnolent noise. Closer in spirit to Mark Lanegan’s solo work, it’s an arty, atmospheric track that seems to weave its way in and out of your consciousness. The pace picks up again on the breezy Spirit Away, which whips up quite a storm as acoustic guitars and falsetto vocals drift through the mix. Then there’s Aching Harbor which takes Automatic for The People as its blueprint, before the woozy wonder of Sip of The Juice once again draws us into its own unique dreamscape.
It’s back to the blues, albeit a blues influenced by all manner of world elements, next, with Midnight Starlight evoking the titular hour over sanguine bass lines, shimmering vibraphone, and gentle rhythms. Similarly, Meteors is overlaid with all sorts of subtle elements, the track emerging as a complimentary piece to Midnight Starlight. It leaves Butterfly to flit through the mix, wrapping up this stunning album on a similar note to Paredes, the world music influences once again echoing the dark grandeur of Peter Gabriel’s early work.
Drink The Sea
There is so much beauty to be found on this double album that it’s difficult to know where to start. Far more than the sum of its parts, it inevitably takes influence from the bands which made its participants famous, yet there is so, so much more to explore here. From the Middle Eastern elements that drive Sacred Tree and Land of Spirits to the richly textured sounds of the South American rainforest that drift through Paredes, and Butterfly, it is an album of atmosphere, texture, and reflection. It reminds us, too, that music can be spiritual without being religious, and joyful without resorting to the obvious. Here, the joy comes from the wonderful chemistry the band share – a chemistry that is written into every note, every beat, and every word sung.
It has been a unique joy to spend the last week working my way through Drink the Sea’s double set, listening and re-listening as I wrote this review. My only regret is that I’ll never experience the album again as if for the first time, but I will surely be revisiting it regularly. 10/10
