Sea Island & Ferry 《As If》

“charted a course and flooded the gaps between local pop, instrumental, film score and even classical”

Note: i don’t have an excuse for my absence, i have been distracted and lazy, condemn me all you want, who are you to judge? i apologise by diminishing myself and using small letters of “i” in this sentence.

When pop music strives hard to discover and synthesise new sounds, Sea Island & Ferry charted a course to bound themselves with 4 instruments and create a refreshing texture that floods the gaps between local pop, instrumental, film score and maybe even classical.

-Growth under Restraint-

Previously cruising with shakuhachi (a Japanese flute that sounds eerie and brings you to a bamboo forest) and saxophones, Sea Island & Ferry settled with a new regular member, a clarinettist. The quartet brings 12 impressive tracks under the new instrumentation, vocal and sound effects features are not cheating, they are lovely. If one ever tried composing anything, one would learn the pain of differentiating tracks and creating various stories and atmosphere with the same set of sound textures. That is why when the world cracks open when sound synthesis comes along, not everyone is Mahler.

“As if” hoisted the power of lyrical melody, which is rare in pop music as they often have lyrics to go along, to tell stories with minimal soundscape. The soundscape is minimal, the melodies are not. “Mortals” and “Way Home” have 2 of my favourite melodies among the 2 albums, if you listen close enough and maybe with a bit of imagination and creativity, you can sing along to the theme of “Way Home” with some coherent Cantonese lyrics. I bet if a seasoned lyricist hears this piece, he/she can instantly write all lines out, I cannot write a single word.

The structures of some pieces, though, restrained the story’s propulsion. “Enter/Exit”’s and “Mortals”’ reprise at the end brings cyclical and structural integrity that has questionable function. Of course, function should not be the top concern when speaking of music, and they do bring a sense of closure and completion that sound very satisfactory, this is why recapitulation is present in sonata form in classical music, yet the simple repetition here made me check if I have “Loop One” on. There are many tools at our disposal to make such repetitions meaningful, and I do not mind a piece ending without resolution. Recorded instrumental albums have the liberty, as not bound like film scoring, to tell and propel a story to any direction that shows some twists and turns.

-The Potential with the Current Crew Onboard-

“Clockwork” and “Blossoms” bring new endeavours with effects and processing, but why not push those further? “Clockwork” utilises fundamental texture of clarinets to create some unique pictures, whilst the mixing utilises the image processing (e.g. panning and stereo enhancer) to keep the listeners hooked, as if (title tagged) there are 10 instruments playing at the same time. So can these practices be pushed further and bring Sea Island & Ferry to a new level?

Nowadays we have so many mixing tools at bay to make music evolve with the same initial elements like a kaleidoscope. With Dolby Atmos afloat, the quartet could be simulated to be playing at the Carnegie Hall, a cave or on a boat at the bay somewhere, retaining the quartet’s texture while navigating the possibility of signal processing.

-Anchored, before Turning the Tide-

My favouritism for Sea Island & Ferry is real. But do we need intonation? We need intonation. Though the music is mainly melodic and atmospheric, at some points the intonation rippled the serenity provided by the music. Not classically trained, but the intonation led me to drift off course from time to time, how much I wanted to be drowned in the music and how I eventually buoyed.

I forgot how I normally ended my reviews but please count the sea-themes words used, I hope all of those sank in.