erasing clouds
 

Artisokka, Sea Bed

review by dave heaton

Artisokka’s second LP is as calming and lovely as the first, with pop melodies and strains of old-world folk balladry crying together by the sea, But calming doesn’t mean easy. Sadness and anxiety are within even the prettiest songs.

Musically the album is not all drift. “They Go Away” is held down firmly by bass and drums. Many of the songs are layered with sounds and shifting energies.

Sea Bed is full of feeling, mood and mystery; a general sense of worry behind a relaxed exterior; songs that twist on a journey. The gentleness of even the song titled “Fine”, where our protagonist sings of feeling happiness that he can’t explain, doesn’t project the sound of happiness, at least not how we usually identify it. Here, feelings are complicated. “It must be happiness”, because he doesn’t know what else it is. Even when instruments bloom like a film score at the end of the song, it isn’t easily explained. The jazzy, occasionally intense “Northern Lights” is an expansive mood piece with the same depth of feeling, and the same puzzling qualities.

”Twisted Mirror” is a rambler’s song in demeanor, and one filled with questions. Questions like, “do I really make you happy?”, for one. On Sea Bed, questions are everywhere, within people and things. This is music with secrets, and a special quietude.

{www.artisokka.net}


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