As anyone familiar with my work would know, I’m a little obsessed with the sea. Maybe its from my formative years spent at Glenelg in Adelaide, or perhaps some race memory from the Cornish side of my ancestry. Whatever the reason, I’ve now mentioned the actual word sea in three titles as well as having ‘Shorebreak’, ‘Water’ and ‘St Tropez’… even my slightly transcendental ‘Sands of Time’ (from ‘Dance with a flower in your hair’) has seabirds in it!
‘Sea daze’ I think of as my ‘Albatross’; not that I wish to be compared to that classic, but the sense of calm and lyricism so appropriate to the guitar surely comes from a similar inspiration. My tune is meant to invoke the oceans slow deep power.. as well as its peaceful calm. Think of the sun glinting on the smooth surface, the light reflecting off a sandy bottom, and perhaps the flashing scales of barely visible fish. Or slow rollers out in the Pacific, with clouds reflected on a surface broken only by the surreal sight of flying fish.
Starting with sibilant slide noises, a harmonic arpeggio heralds in a tabla Bollywood-like sampled drum loop; my usual left and right guitars, one steel string and one nylon, with the melody also as usual on the classical guitar. Very understated piano notes, which are matched with airy-fairy slide seagull-cry effects played on a delightful little ‘Hawaiian’ guitar called The Burlington, circa 1930′s, that I was lucky enough to find in a thrift shop. Long Fender bass notes, and an understory of various sampled percussive effects. In between all this Steve Hesketh weaves sympathetic Hammond organ, going through the rotating speaker of the Leslie cabinet. I was very keen to get Steve (well known Hammond wizz-kid) on the album. He very kindly agreed to do to the session to return a favour. This favour related to the use of a Tessa couch… such is the way our vintage furniture shop and my music life can intertwine! Being in Northcote is great for networking with musicians, as apparently it has the highest ratio of musicians in Australia, going by APRA member postcodes. Added to that I’ve been told it also has the highest fertility rate as well… there must be something in the water! But I digress.
Following a rather nifty middle eight comes a pause, perhaps representing being on the edge of nodding off for a siesta on a sunny seaside afternoon. But a slow downward arpeggio is countered by a faster upward harmonic one and we’re back in the groove, with the addition of a three piece horn section, which slowly, slowly, slowly builds to the inevitable end of my SEA DAZE.