SEAWORTHY
"1897" (12K1053)
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ALL
MUSIC (.COM)
For their second CD for the 12k
label, Seaworthy worked from field recordings made by the group's
Cameron Webb in an Australian decommissioned ammunitions bunker
built in -- you might have guessed -- 1897. Webb performed and
recorded inside the bunkers and in the lush surrounding nature.
Sam Shinazzi and Greg Bird added their contributions afterward.
You might expect austerity, a large, empty, echoing sonic space,
or even a subtle reflection on war and armament, but 1897 is
none of that. The music is elegant and quiet, with an air of
dignity and hope. Guitars (lightly strummed, looped, stretching
e-bow notes, or prepared) form the core of the music, along
with digital treatments. 1897 features 12 tracks, most in the
three- to six-minute range, with a couple of short interludes
and one ten-minute piece. We are somewhere between the free-form
blues-folk soliloquies of Loren Connors and the esthetic purity
of Oren Ambarchi circa Suspension -- an antagonistic pair of
references at first sight, but they blend well and create an
interesting stylistic scope. This album's only flaw may be its
lack of surprises: it gets so unintrusive, delicate, and sweet
that it may very well fail to make an impression. However, it
makes a fine late-night listen.
BLOW
UP (IT)
Secondo
album su 12k per Cameron Webb aka Seaworthy, che elabora "1897"
dopo aver trascorso due mesi rinchiuso in un vecchio bunker
armato, prescelto come base per l'elaborazione e l'esecuzione
di una serie di improvvisazioni per chitarra. Sfruttando l'effetto
di reverbero naturale e le dinamiche acustiche di risonanza
interna del luogo, il chitarrista australiano combina impasto
strumentale e suoni campionati dall'ambiente circostante. Tra
sequenze di forte carica introspettiva (Ammunition 2, Ammunition
4) e delicate pieces atmosferiche (Installation 2), il suno
secco della sei corde si fa spazio nel processing degli elemnti
della natura (vento, uccelli ed insetti), riecheggiando il vuoto
e la malinconia dell'inverno che cala sul paesaggio australiano
di Newington. (7/8) - Leandro Pisano
BRAINWASHED (US)
Heavily sourced from both field
recordings and guitar, the material on this disc gives the natural
color of its geographic location: an ammunitions bunker and its
surrounding wilderness the spotlight. As a whole the pieces are
staunchly minimalist, allowing the core sounds to be the focus
rather than a great deal of electronics or processing, which is
surely artist Cameron Webb’s intent with this work.
The most literal interpretations of the theme that can be heard
here are the two "Inside" tracks (both sequenced towards
the early part of the disc), and the closing "Outside."
The former two are brief, but are slow motion studies of reverb,
all leaning on the dark and obfuscated elements of that effect.
Given it was recording in a massive decommissioned bunker, it
is entirely likely that the reverb is more the product of actual
environment instead of traditional VST plugins. The converse is
the album closer, "Outside," which is exactly that:
a lush field recording of rain enveloping the mix, with some far
off bird calls to signify the light outside of the massive, cold
structure.
The pieces in between these two take different directions, but
continue to use similar themes throughout. With the exception
of its first part, the six pieces of "Ammunition" focuses
mostly on the clear sounds of untreated guitar. The plaintive,
looped guitar notes are the focus, with the occasional piece of
glitch texture or electronic pulse to show up, but almost always
remaining extremely subtle, to leave the focus on the organic
guitar. The "Ammunition" suite does, however, open with
a passage of humming and buzzing, with melodic beeps, while it
closes with static, frigid tones, a small amount of static, and
the birds chirping in the distance.
The three-piece "Installation" suite emphasizes the
digital sounds more, but still with Webb’s sense of restraint.
The first part is fuzzy opaque static—not quite distortion,
yet thick and dense—with swells of melody below the grimy
noisier elements. The second segment continues this, allowing
delicate chiming tones and other soft elements to occasionally
rise to the surface above rattling electronics and ground hum
distortion. The set closes with swirling guitar and bird calls,
though still secondary to the synthetic and processed sounds,
but never being too obscured.
The recording location for these tracks could undoubtedly be said
to have influenced the sound, because the disc is a perfect sonic
metaphor for an empty ammunitions bunker within a delicate ecosystem
and nature preserve. With extreme restraint digital instrumentation,
traditional guitar, and field recordings are allowed to coexist,
and I don’t think it is an accident that the most memorable
sounds are the natural ones when all is said and done. - Creaig
Dunton
D-SIDE
(FR)
Elément essentiel de la
musique du trio australien Seaworthy, l'environnement y joue un
role assi important sinon plus, que l'inspiration ou le choix
de l'instrumentation, et apres un Map In Hand qui se
consacrait a l'exploration des zones humides et pastorales de
l'Australie, 1897 adopte un point de vue qui se rapproche
des réalisations humaines, puisque la quasi-totalité
des titres proviennent, plus ou moins directement, d'un bunker
a munitions désaffecté construit en 1897 a Newington,
en Australie. Au
fil d'une résidence de trois mois, Seaworthy s'est donc
livré a de nombreux enregistrements de field recordings,
a des improvisations (a la guitare ou aux machines) et a des compositions,
a la fois dans le bunker lui-meme, mais également a l'exterieur,
dans la foret ou les prairies proches, cex deux environnements,
naturel et construit, entrant en résonance lorsque Seaworthy,
utilisant la résonance du bunker, y diffuse pour les réenregistrer,
des field recordings captés en extérieur. Nettement
plus mélancolique que Map In Hand, qui était
avant tout une question d'espace, 1897 est d'abord fondé
sur un rapport au temps et porte en lui le poids des années
grignotant l'armature du bunker, dessinant le paysage dans sa
progression, sa lutte opiniatre et silencieuse contre l'intrusion
humaine. Superbe!
ETHEREAL (FR)
Perpétuant leur approche
partagée entre ambient et post-rock, les Australiens de
Seaworthy nous proposent, plus de deux ans après la ressortie
de Map In Hand, un nouvel album sur 12k. Enregistré principalement
dans un entrepôt à munitions situé à
proximité de Sidney et construit en 1897 (d'où le
titre du long-format), ce disque se veut également plus
mélancolique que les précédents efforts du
trio.
De fait, les notes de guitare d'Ammunition 2 et Ammunition 3,
par leur détachement langoureux, influent un fort sentiment
nostalgique, peut-être un rien trop insistant, mais assurément
efficace et bien exécuté. À côté
de ces titres joliment contemplatifs majoritairement issus de
la guitare de Cameron Webb, les morceaux dénommés
Installation |uvrent dans des climats plus torturés, principalement
constitués de textures oscillantes et de petits sons plus
stridents (Installation 1) ou d'une nappe presqu'immobile (Installation
2).
Si chacune de ces deux directions musicales ne s'avère
nullement novatrice, voire un peu rabattue, l'alternance entre
les deux permet aux Australiens de tisser un album savoureux et
chaleureux. De surcroît, emporté par cette succession
de titres languides et de morceaux tourmentés, on se fait
prendre par surprise en trouvant, aux deux-tiers de 1897, un Installation
3 qui opère plutôt dans la première catégorie
et, à la fin de l'album, un Ammunition 6 et un Outside
qui intègrent quelques bruits champêtres (eau qui
coule, oiseaux qui gazouillent). 6/8
FOXY
DIGITALIS (BLOG)
Cameron Webb’s Seaworthy
project returns with a set whose spatial setting greatly impacts
the sonic output presented here. Given the chance to record an
album in an abandoned Australian ammunitions bunker, Webb took
full advantage of the empty spaces afforded to him, combining
the natural reverb of the space with found sounds from the neighboring
wetlands to create a stark and physically grounded aural experience.
Trotting the line between ambient organizer and field recorder,
Webb presents twelve tracks, each numbered and labeled as either
“Inside,” “Ammunition,” “Installation”
or, on the closing track alone, “Outside.” This poetic
move from inside to outside is hardly noticeable however, so encapsulating
are the sounds themselves. Gentle guitar is woven on “Ammunition
2” and “3,” taking full advantage of the space
and surrounding sounds in creating a lulling meditation on the
area.
The “Installations,” especially the still glistening
of “1” and the flustered electro-acoustics of “2”
present another angle, sometimes mixing guitar in but mostly sticking
to the scrapes and hums within the space. For my money though,
some of the strongest material here is found in the brief and
eerie recordings made within the building with little to know
instrumentation. Vast caverns of air move about as footsteps and
small trickles emanate through the space, making for a highly
tangible listening experience. For my money, there actually could
have been more of this, and often it seems the ideas here are
more divided and contrasting than perhaps was intended—nestling
guitar tracks next to still static hum is a tough thing to pull
off without making the guitar initially read as slightly trite.
Still, this is a well-conceived and thoughtful direction, and
one clearly engaged here by a highly capable practitioner of the
form. Very interesting. 7/10
MESS
& NOISE (.COM)
Musicians accustomed to recording in an intimate home environment
often make a fuss when shifting to a “real” recording
studio. Enter stage right Cameron Webb of Seaworthy. On his
third full-length record, Webb has foregone the studio entirely,
moving straight into a cavernous former artillery depot. It’d
be a pretty hairy environment to record lonesome in, especially
if you’re doing it on a near daily basis for three months,
and the change of scene has moulded Webb’s trademark calm
into unsettling new shapes.
Still, Webb isn’t one to make a fuss, and this is very
much a Seaworthy album in the vein of 2005’s Map In
Hand. Only this time Webb’s guitar playing is more
bereft and mournful, the drones more barren, and the smoky tonal
emanations wistful like a marooned apparition. The ghosts of
routines past – fleeting intangible histories teased out
by isolation in a once frequently inhabited environment –
bleed into these 12 pieces with the crusted vividness of a crumbling
reel-to-reel. When Webb lets the environment directly affect
his compositions – as on most of the ‘Installation’
tracks – we feel the corners of the rooms, the rust of
the conveyor tracks and the crumbling of the cement walls. Soft
tones and chiming guitar notes billow about like feathers from
a pricked pillow.
When Webb picks up his guitar and plays in a relatively conventional
way, it sounds like a tribute. There are note combinations here
that bring Map in Hand to mind, but Webb is a player so possessed
by his mood and surroundings that these slight, tuneful pieces
can only be translated effectively by the heart; in the language
they were created. - by Shaun Prescott
MOJO
(UK)
By day, Dr. Cameron Webb works as a medical entomologist, investigating
the impact of disease-carrying mosquitos on the wetland regions
of New South Wales. In the process he finds himself in strange,
deserted landscapes, which provide inspiration for the thirtysomething's
other job, as guitarist in Sydney three-piece Seaworthy. 2006's
Map In Hand used Webb's field recordings of dawn bird-song as
the jumping off point for a dreamlike guitar and electronics
pastorale. With 1897 he's done deeper, starker, crafting a series
of guitar improvisations within a 100-year-old decommissioned
sandstone ammunitions bunker in Newington, Australia. Using
the dark-toned reverb of the bunker and the eeir, rustling quiet
of the surrounding marshes, he has created an organic ghostly
fantasia, a creaking, chiming chamber piece of rich, lulling
melancholy. - Andrew Male
MUSIQUEMACHINE
(.COM)
1897 is the second full length album by Australian
electro/ acoustic mood setters Seaworthy on the great ambient/
electronic meets acoustic label 12k. It finds the three piece
weaving a darker, starker and more melancholy work than their
first album for the label the excellent Map in Hand.
The bands sound is still focusing in on a mixture of: bluesy
guitar hovers and twangs, folky richness and slumbering drone
emission with subtle electronics elements and treatments. But
overall there’s a bleaker, more sombre and drifting mood
present here with at times an almost dark ambient/ organic industrial
air arising, yet it never gets too dark with a richly harmonic
in place and the bands distinct sound still present- it’s
just darkening the sonic waters somewhat. Part of the reason
for the albums tone has to do with were it was recorded; which
was in and around a 100 year old decommissioned ammunitions
bunker in Newington, Australia. The Bunker was Constructed in
1897(hence the albums name) to store gunpowder, with
the bunker been use by the Australian navy up until recently.
The band utilize the natural reverb and tones of the bunkers
rooms to record guitar and electronic elements, as well as mixing
in field recordings from inside the buildings, and the surrounding
wetland and forest environments. But the field recording never
overrun or take over the bands mainly drifting and shimmering
guitar based sound; they just add rewarding and atmospric detail
to the albums rich harmonic yet darkly tinged unfold.
1897 is more album based compared to Map In hand
with sonic and musically themes repeating themselves here and
there; along with the wonderful mood the band conjur up through-out
the album which is best described as summer past melancholy
meet nostalgic harmonic warmth. It’s a haunting, harmonic
and sadly soothing album that really mangers to get under ones
skin over replays
NORMAN RECORDS (UK)
'1897' is the latest installment of minimalist soundscapes from
Australian nerdo noise composer Cameron Webb a.k.a 'Seaworthy'.
Webb has spent a significant number of years perfecting his
subtle combination of minimalist composition and found sounds
and approaches the subject methodically and confidently. '1897'
is a reference to an army ammunitions bunker used as a studio
space for this recording and the year of it's construction.
You can read a little more about this in the press release so
i won't go on but I will mention that Webb is obviously inspired
by the environment and the majority of tracks reflect this with
the only titles being Ammunition or Installation follow by a
reference number. Tracks vary in tone from unnerving drones
to lonesome, helplessly sad guitar ballads and may be of interest
to Yellow 6 or maybe Aerial M aficionados. If you like your
music studied and minimalist then this will definitely interest
you. A great soundtrack to an ambient musing.
OX
(DE)
Seaworthy reprasentiert genau das, was ich unter Gitarren-Ambient
erstehe. Es werden zwar auch noch einige Field-Recordings eingespielt,
aber das Hauptinstrument ist hier eindeutig die wunderschone,
sanfte und lautmalerische Gitarre des Australiers Cameron Webb.
Vollkommen vom Drone-ballast befreit und jenseits sinnfreien
New Age Geklimpers werden hier Klanglandschaften aufeindander
gelegt, die sich dabei schwerelos verweben und den gesamten
Raum mit einer friedlichen, harmonischen, positiven, wenn auch
leicht melancholischen Stimmung überfluten. Dabei wird
vollkommen auf Rhythmusspure verzichtet. Bilder von der Weite
des Meeres tauchen auf, sich wiegende Grashalme im Wind oder
auch ein Spaziergang an einem klaren Wintermorgen ließe
sich damit gut gestalten.
PLAYGROUND
(ES)
Decíamos hace poco que, con la publicación del
recopilatorio "Blueprints", a finales de 2006, el
sello 12k dio un golpe de timón a la que hasta entonces
había sido su línea de actuación: de un
ambient luminoso y diamantino, de trazas minimalistas y formulación
prácticamente digital, se ha pasado a proyectos que también
hunden sus raíces en la tradición ambiental, pero
que prefieren utilizar herramientas de naturaleza acústica
para su definición. Que dan todo el protagonismo a instrumentos
clásicos (guitarras, baterías, bajos, pianos o
cuerdas), y sólo utilizan los ordenadores para decorar
los fondos sonoros, para manipular alguno de los instrumentos
o gestionar grabaciones de campo.
Con el tiempo, y tras media docena larga de discos publicados,
se ha podido comprobar que el invento funciona mejor con aquellas
bandas que reinterpretan la estética tradicional del
sello desde otros puntos de vista (no es nada nuevo: John Fahey
o Loren Mazzacane Connors ya hacían cosas parecidas con
la única ayuda de una guitarra acústica), que
con los que se acercan peligrosamente al post rock en su vertiente
más derivativa. Y el mejor ejemplo de esta dualidad es
Seaworthy, una de las bandas que participó en aquella
recopilación, que es capaz de aproximarse a los dos extremos.
En los mejores momentos de "1897", su nuevo disco,
este trío neozelandés construye paisajes de una
belleza insondable y aislacionista: a fuerza de estirar hasta
el infinito las notas que arrancan a sus instrumentos (sobre
todo guitarras), de enredarse en un maelstrom de pedales de
efectos, bucles y arpegios armados a baja velocidad, construyen
letanías hipnóticas y sutiles, pura apnea ambiental.
Así que es una lástima que en otros momentos prefieran
dejarse llevar por un tobogán de pequeños crescendos
y caídas en barrena, que prefieran enrocarse en un rock
atmosférico y lento, plagado de lugares comunes. Si consiguieran
abandonar esa pose de rockeros reciclados, estarían llamados
a grandes empresas; de momento, se quedan en la categoría
de artistas discretos. 6/10
ROCKERILLA
(IT)
Dopo un paio di drones destabilizzanti che servono a calibrare
l'ascolto su tempi mediolenti, le chitarre cristalline, cariche
di nostalgia, dei tre Seaworthy entrano su "Ammunition
2", la quarta traccia in scaletta. E l'incanto si ripete.
Proprio come sull'esordio su 12k di tre anni fa, "Map In
Hand," Cameron Webb, Sam Shinazzi e Greg Bird intarsiano
loop di chitarra a strati di lieve elettricita con arpeggi meravigliosi,
capaci di infilarsi tra le maglie del tempo. Le registrazioni
di "1897" sono avvenute nel corso del 2007 dentro
un vecchio bunker abbandonato. Gli ambienti desolati del bunker
donano alla musica una veste sontuosa e quasi sacrale, carica
di armonici incredibili.
SILENT
BALLET (.COM)
Seaworthy is the project of Sydney’s Cameron Webb.
1897 is the second longplayer after Map in Hand in 2006. It
belongs on 12k.
It is heavy on minimalist guitar textures and re-recorded installations
of field recordings.
It was recorded at the site of a hundred year old decommissioned
ammunitions bunker in Newington.
The longplayer is named after the bunker’s year of construction.
It is a profoundly poignant piece of work. It inspired me to
write this poem.
Oh 12k, what refuge you provide for the lonely and the broken-hearted
In the quiet space he sits,
Atop an endless valley that breathes,
A breath of swollen supremacy,
Shattered and torn,
Broken, like the refracted rays of distress,
Or of comfort.
It is warm and brilliant.
Oh hear the wails of the naked atmosphere,
The illumination of doubt,
Without flux, without field,
Without sleep.
No power, and no outage,
Only the blending of indigo and deep violet.
And yet here she comes.
And goes.
Here she leaves,
Her eyes bitter, his lips dry,
His fingers over the rusted cake of steel.
Her voice whispers, “don’t wait, me, I’m no
longer,”
Echoing in his frail psyche,
Abandoned in some kind of timeless corridor.
He sits to watch.
Don’t face her,
But let her face the sea.
To think of it as a 'trance-like' state has already been flogged
to bits. Go beyond that. It is the essence of sound that constructs
our feeling. The minimalism of 1897 demands an affective absence
of its sound, as much as a stirring presence. The alternation
between stripped-down a guitar track, to the layered warmth
of guitar-induced textures, to the simplest sparse chirping
of garden biology, makes this very much an experience that trascends
the need for descriptors. The only effective referentiality
here is to cushion your own ears against the padding of some
cans and hear what you will feel.
-anonymous
TEMPORARY
FAULT (BLOG)
Originally taped in a former
ammunitions bunker in Sydney (whose date of construction gives
the release its title), operated by the Australian Navy until
the Gulf War’s era and now unutilized, this record was
born from about six hours of location recordings on 4-track
cassette, minidisc and computer upon which Cameron Webb –
Seaworthy’s deus ex machina – worked for a full
year in between the residual free moments granted to him by
his first paternity. A gently wavering album divided in crepuscular
ambient pieces – stretched drones spreading an imperceptible
influence in subtle fashion – and, in particular, shimmering
guitars revolving around one, maximum two tonal centres for
protracted spans with rare mildly dissonant variations, the
whole at times underlined by singing birds and other environmental
incidences. Ideal for a parenthesis of quietness when one’s
bothered by upsetting thoughts or after a sleepless night, this
music does not ask for more than just existing and breathing
in close proximity to listeners who don’t feed the insatiable
ambition of analytical questioning. Nice enough job, but I’d
have preferred a smaller amount of glowing arpeggios in favour
of additional motionless auroras: the droning tracks are in
fact way better than the rest. An entire CD of them would nearly
correspond to a work of art. Instead this is only a pleasurable
listen, which is OK in any case.
TERZ (DE)
Das australische Trio nahm diese
12 Stücke in einem 1897 gebauten Munitions-Bunker in Newington,
Australien, auf, der bis vor kurzem noch in Gebrauch war, u.
a. für den 90er-Golf-Krieg, und seitdem leer steht. Die
Räume sind groß, leer, jedoch voller Schwingungen
und Hall, die jede kleinste Bewegung dort hinterlässt.
Während eines dreimonatigen Artist-in-residence-Programms
in der Winterzeit ließ man sich von der den Bunker umgebenden
eigentümlichen Marsch- und Moorlandschaft mit ihren unzähligen
geschützten Tierarten inspirieren, die sehr im Kontrast
zu der unheimlichen Größe, Stille und Leere des Gebäudes
steht. Die Stücke sind klar, intim, melancholisch, teilweise
kühl und voller zirkulärer Geheimnisse. So ist das.
Honker
TEXTURA
(.ORG)
A strong sense of place permeates
1897, the sophomore 12k album from Australia-based Seaworthy
(Cameron Webb, Greg Bird, Sam Shinazzi). Recorded in a 100-year-old
ammunitions bunker in Newington, Australia, which originally
was constructed in 1897 to store gunpowder (hence the title),
and abetted by field recordings gathered from the extensive
wetland and forest environments (which provide safe havens for
endangered and internationally-protected wildlife) surrounding
the bunker, the album enhances Webb's ruminative guitar playing
with sounds of birds, insects, and wind blowing through the
trees. Because installations of field recordings played back
within the bunkers were also recorded, reverb contributes significantly
to the album's overall sound too. Seaworthy spent much of 2008
shaping the six hours of 4-track cassette, minidisk, and computer
recordings that resulted from the sessions into 1897's final
form.
The album's tracks range primarily between two groupings, “Ammunitions”
and “Installations,” the former largely stark guitar
settings and the latter soundscapes of varying design. “Ammunition
1” weaves gossamer-like threads of electrical tones, soft
electronic shadings, and field recording elements into a placid
whole. By presenting Webb's subdued electric guitar playing
in untreated and natural manner, “Ammunition 2”
gives the material warmth and lends the album an inviting appeal,
while the ten-minute guitar meditation “Ammunition 3”
is so halting and pensive, it feels time-suspending. Because
looping was used during the recording process, a track such
as “Ammunition 5” sounds as if two guitarists are
playing together with each simultaneously soloing and supporting
the explorations of the “other” musician. The closing
pieces, “Ammunition 6” and “Outside,”
send the listener outdoors, where the sounds of footsteps, bird
calls, wind, and water dominate. While the guitar spotlights
are, generally speaking, intimate in nature, “Installation
1” is a colder and rather industrial-sounding smeary drone
whose ambiance suggests the large, echoing space that it was
recorded within. By contrast, “Installation 2,”
an almost somnambulant drone, is much softer and warmer in tone,
and hence more inviting, while “Installation 3”
merges the guitar playing with a shape-shifting mass of fluttering
sounds.
Being understated and self-effacing by design, Seaworthy's sound
can be easy to under-appreciate, and in that regard it reminds
me a little bit of Solo Andata's Fyris Swan release (issued
on Hefty in 2006). Like it, 1897 often drifts by unassumingly,
content to not attract too much attention to itself. Headphones
listening enhances one's appreciation for the recording's merits.
TIME
OUT (AU)
Seaworthy have established themselves
in recent years as one of the more accessible acts of Taylor
Deupree’s 12K label. The Sydney trio’s lush post-rock
has always embodied the kind of rich and layered aesthetic rarely
witnessed on the New York label. 1897, however, represents a
notable shift in focus for the group – mainman Cameron
Webb temporarily embracing a more esoteric and minimal approach
for the outfit’s second full-length recording. The record’s
unconventional and investigative nature, however, has done nothing
to detract from the band’s innate knack for constructing
intriguing and intelligent musical compositions.
The product of a lengthy investigation into the sonic realities
of an abandoned Sydney naval bunker, 1897 is a solitary record
of angular construction, melancholic beauty and intelligent
dynamism. Webb has taken full advantage of
the unique acoustics of his muse with understated drone numbers
like ‘Ammunition 1’ and ‘Installation 2’
alive with a palpable sense of absence and space. Webb’s
guitar-led concessions to accessibility, likewise, benefit from
a refined sense of expansive construction – the meandering
‘Ammunition 2’ making for a deeply enthralling and
hypnotic ten minutes. It is the affecting undercurrent of beauty
and melancholia running through 1897, however, that truly distinguishes
the record.
A record with a twelve-month gestation period, 1897 could very
easily have been reduced to a clinical exercise in intellectual
curiosity – particularly given Webb’s background
as an environmental scientist and researcher. The album glows,
however, with an abstract and unpretentious sadness. This is
achieved in no small part by pastoral guitar vignettes like
‘Ammunition 5’, but the same emotional engagement
imbues the record’s more esoteric moments – even
field recording pieces like ‘Installation 1’. It’s
this cohesive approach to emotional engagement that saves 1897
from pretension and establishes the record as a gorgeous and
rewarding listening experience. - Matt O’Neill (Time Out
Magazine)
TOKAFI
(.COM)
In school, everybody had their
clearly designated position. There was the bully. The nerd.
The geek. The hunk. The victim. In his class, Cameron Webb was
probably the daydreamer: The guy who, while everybody else was
conscientiously analysing texts about ancient Egypt, would look
at the pictures and imagine himself standing there among the
Pharaos, marauding Tut Ench's burial chambers and supervising
armies of slaves as they carried massive bricks the size of
refrigerators through the hot and sultry air. Then, just when
his flirt with Nofretete at one of these decadent Nile-parties
seemed to be going somewhere, the teacher would call him back
to what is unfortunately falsely accepted as the „real
world“, summoning him to order and shaking his head in
disbelief about how someone could loose himself this way when
there are so many exciting historical dates to be learnt by
heart.
Even daydreamers eventually turn into adults, but that doesn't
mean they need to automatically grow up and become brokers or
accountants. Webb for one never lost sight of the child inside,
founding Seaworthy with Sam Shinazzi and Greg Bird as an outlet
for romantic, brittle, heavenly harmonious and unironically
post-nothing soundscapes. A mere year after their 12k debut
„Map in Hand“ was released to great international
acclaim in 2006, Webb was appointed artist in residence by the
Sydney Olympic Park Authority’s Arts Program and spent
three months at an old army bunker. Embedded into lush strips
of grass, brushwood and wetlands, the Newington Armory precinct
represented an unoccupied memory hotel, a frozen archive of
untold stories absorbed by its solid red sandstone walls for
more than a century
You can easily picture Webb wandering through the endless corridors
and empty halls of the bunker, sipping on Nescafe at an empty
refectory and falling asleep on an uncomfortable bunk wrapped
in thin blankets that smell of mothballs and dampness. Photos
shot during his stay show him staring out of wooden windowpanes,
pointing his microphone at an old cargo carriage and following
the train tracks down to where they disappear into the gaping
mouth of a narrow tunnel through a small hill. You can tell
just by looking at these images that it is very quiet, with
just the sounds of wind, birds and wild animals tentatively
infiltrating the breathing void. Everything smacks of solitude
here, of remoteness and non-worldliness. Few would regard this
place as a well of inspiration.
And yet, when Webb returned, he had captured several hours of
sound. Apparently, he must have heard songs and stories where
others experienced nothing but silence. Organising them into
distinct pieces and then building a narrative around these tracks
took another twelve months. It proved to be a tremendous challenge
to retain the mood and personality of the place he had just
explored while breaking down epic episodes into concise compositions
while digging for meaning in myriads of short fragments. The
tender sonic quilt of „1897“, however, astoundingly
achieves this seemingly impossible mission with apparent ease.
In three short field recordings, Webb puts his audience in his
place, filling the bunker with discreet noise and then waiting
for it to reply to his queues in tongues of reverb and echo.
While the drone pieces, ranging between light-filled fields
of tranquility and resonant sheets of metallic shimmer, display
a nuanced feeling of purity and delicacy, it is the pairing
of two extended Guitar episodes at the beginning of the album
which proves to be decisive for the sweet enveloping effect
of the album. A simple melodic motive acts as a guideline, dividing
longer stretches of improvisation and drawing from Blues, classical
composition, Jazz and Psychedelia alike. Very gently, the music
seems to be leaving physical reality, almost imperceptibly shifting
towards the heart of the precinct, where darkness is illuminated
by whispered secrets waiting to be uncovered. All sense of time
is lost in these borderless excursions, which raise hopes for
a full album with solo Guitar pieces by Seaworthy some time
in the future. After entrancing his listeners with beauty, Webb
subsequently brings the album to a comforting close with a string
of warm ambient pieces, ebbing away into the forest on one and
a half minute finale „Outside“.
One could of course say that none of these things would be apparent
without reading the press release. It is certainly true that
„1897“ doesn't rely on recognisable field recordings
as much as many other comparable releases from the drone community
– at least not in the sense that sounds are turning into
the actual core of the music. Of course, the unique acoustics
of the bunker add a natural sensation of majesty and harmony
to these pieces, but they, too, never become overwhelmingly
conceptual: It is still the musicians, not the building, playing
the music here.
And yet, in an extremely emotional and important way, knowledge
about the backgrounds of these recordings does add to the listening
experience in that it suddenly places these already sensitive
works in an even more intimate context. If just a handful of
photographs on the 12k website are capable of conjuring up intense
feelings of yearning in the spectator, it is hard to imagine
the effect on the few lucky fans who managed to get a hold on
the collector's edition which comes with a 64-page full colour
booklet. With Cameron Webb, after all. the narrative behind
the sounds is where it all starts and his singular capacity
of translating dreams into music turns him into an artistic
alchemist. Such a shame about that aborted Nile-party - Nofretete
would have been charmed. - By Tobias Fischer
UNCUT
(UK)
1897 is another great
installment in this lackadaisical trio’s pursuit of the
urban pastoral. Webb’s guitar is centre stage and he’s
a great, understated player, threading needlepoint phrases through
these mood pieces, rather like watching oxide flake off a spooling
reel of home movies. 3 stars. (September 2009)
VITAL
WEEKLY (NL)
Seaworthy, being Cameron Webb
out of Australia, was here in Vital Weekly a few weeks ago with
a split 3"CDR release, and now returns with his second
album for 12K. He spent three months in an old ammunition bunker,
playing a series of improvisations on his guitar, as well as
playing field recordings inside the bunker using the natural
reverb of the place. That may remind some of ABGS 'Bunkerschallung',
but Webb plays throughout a more gentle tune, certainly since
he at times goes back to a guitar piece, with no reverb. Here
he may sound like good ol' Durutti Column, but the contrast
with the natural reverb pieces work actually quite nice. It
seems wide apart, but the total makes a nice balance. The dry
sound of the guitar on one hand and the 'treated' sounds of
birds, wind and insects. Beautiful release, just as English.
Both not necessarily add much to the 12K reputation in this
field, but broaden the perspective of microsound a bit more.
(FdW)
WESTZEIT
(DE)
Der Australier Cameron Webb zog
mit seinem Wquipment in einen bis vor kurzem von der Navy genutzten
Munitionsbunker, dessen Baujahr der CD den Titel gab. Da drinnen
und in der der Offentlichkeit nicht zuganglichen und daher recht
naturnahen Umgebung nahm er u.a. Gitarrenspuren und Tierlaute
auf, nutzte den natürlichen Hall der Räume für
re-recordings und bastelte später aus alldem im Studio
eine Collage, deren Melancholie die klaustrophoben Entstehungsbedingungen
vergessen macht: Loops einer ruhig dahin improvisierenden Elektrogitarre
dominieren über weite Strecken, de zentes Knisterknacken
strukturiert die stark bearbeiteten field-recordings. Den Abschied
bildet mit "outside" dann nahezu ungestörtes
Vogelgezwitscher. - Karsten Zimalla
THE
WIRE (UK)
Dominated in large part by the
floral guitar picking of Seaworthy’s Cameron Webb, 1897
is very much in the 12k tradition, from the gentle, sweet, drowsy
drones of “Ammunition 1” to the use of a natural
location – in this case the Newington Armory precinct
at Sydney Olympic Park, which discreetly functions as a sort
of musical instrument in its own right. On the brief interpolations
“Inside” and “Inside 2” there is a suggestive
echoing pingpong of acoustics which root the record in environmental
reality. “Ammunition 2” and “Ammunition 4”
are organic digressions in but separated from the realms of
natural sound only by a little tweaking and melodic sugardusting.
On “Ammunition 5” the guitars are gently strafed
and merge again with the trademark throb of 12k synth. This
is never startling – that’s not the point with 12k
releases. It does, however, manage to evoke a combined state
of tranquility and intense concentration. - David Stubbs.
