| "Sea Within a Sea" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by The Horrors | ||||
| from the album Primary Colours | ||||
| Released | 17 March 2009 | |||
| Recorded | 2008 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 8:00 | |||
| Label | XL | |||
| Songwriter(s) |
| |||
| Producer(s) | Geoff Barrow | |||
| The Horrors singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Music video | ||||
| "Sea Within a Sea" on YouTube | ||||
"Sea Within a Sea" is a song by English rock band the Horrors, released on 17 March 2009 by XL Recordings as a single from their second studio album, Primary Colours .
"Sea Within a Sea" has been viewed as the Horrors' shift from the garage rock of their 2007 debut album, Strange House . Jacob Sheppard of DIY magazine examined the song as the group's "new direction", where they "take on a more mature sound; more electronic, bass heavy and psychedelic", hailing it as a "Neu! sounding, shoe-gazing seven-minute masterpiece". [1] Similarly, Cam Lindsay from Exclaim! magazine has regarded the track as "an eight-minute beauty that discards the raucous trashed garage of old" and "sinister throwback sound in deep krautrock trances and '60s psychedelia whilst still managing to hold on to their spooky shtick". [2]
Many music writers and critics have stated that the song combines influences from krautrock, post-punk and Portishead (the previous band of the single's producer, Geoff Barrow). Johnathan Garrett of Pitchfork described the song as an "oddly muzaked take on krautrock"; however, he commented that the track was "weirdly restrained" and "the Horrors can't even be bothered to leave an impression". [3] Sean O'Neal of the A.V. Club depicted that the song's instrumentation "drowns its post-punk ebbs in sprays of crashing guitar before being carried out on a sparkling tide of minimalist electronic pulses". [4] Music writer Dorian Lynskey of the Guardian claimed the single as "ascendant krautrock - Can by way of the last Portishead album", praising it as "several kinds of wonderful". [5] Prefix magazine explained that the song "perfectly connects with Portishead touchstones such as Neu!, Can and Kraftwerk" and is a "glacial eight-minute groove that only gets better as its parts disentangle". [6] Emily Tartanella from PopMatters expressed that the lead single was "miles away from anything they’ve done before", outlining that "like Ian Curtis fronting the Cure, it’s mysterious, languid, and just a little bit spooky." [7] NME magazine described the song as "an eight-minute Spacemen 3-meets-Neu! odyssey of ominous motorik rhythms, Faris' mournful incantations and an expanding starfield of synths". [8] In October 2011, NME placed it at number 101 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years". [9]
The music video for the song was directed by Douglas Hart, former bassist of Scottish alternative rock band the Jesus and Mary Chain. Hart integrated old production methods and special effects to forge a psychedelic and colourful eight-minute video, creating a similar atmosphere to live performances of the Velvet Underground at the Factory. Hart stated that "the challenge becomes how to create something psychedelic without resorting to the cliché of trapping the band in a giant lava lamp". [10]
The video starts with a presenter seated in an armchair, introducing the Horrors. The intent was to recreate the situation of bands "performing on the kind of shows that they didn't fit in" with a presenter "who obviously hated the band" in order to build up excitement to the performance. This idea was primarily inspired by Public Image Ltd's performance on American Bandstand in 1980. [10]
Hart processed magnets around a TV with a cathode ray tube that illustrated images of architecture and colourful polka dots. These pictures were then re-shot for projection. Subsequently, the magnets bent the cathode rays elsewhere from the screen, along a magnetic field, and created variations with the vibrant colours. This production technique was utilized by early video artists since machines that colourised video images had not yet been invented. The projected images were developed and created on Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects. [10]
Chris Cunningham is a British video artist and music video director who directed music videos for electronic musicians such as Autechre, Squarepusher, and Aphex Twin on videos for "Windowlicker" and "Come to Daddy", and Björk's "All is Full of Love". All were used in Chris' chapter in Director's Label.
Portishead are an English band formed in 1991 in Bristol. The band comprises Beth Gibbons (vocals), Geoff Barrow, and Adrian Utley (guitar). Dave McDonald, an audio engineer who helped produce the band's first two albums, is sometimes regarded as the fourth member.
Krautrock is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electronic music, among other eclectic sources. Common elements included hypnotic rhythms, extended improvisation, musique concrète techniques, and early synthesizers, while the music generally moved away from the rhythm & blues roots and song structure found in traditional Anglo-American rock music. Prominent groups associated with the krautrock label included Neu!, Can, Faust, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Popol Vuh, Amon Düül II and Harmonia.
Neu! were a West German krautrock band formed in Düsseldorf in 1971 by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother following their departure from Kraftwerk. The group's albums were produced by Conny Plank, who has been regarded as the group's "hidden member". They released three albums in their initial incarnation—Neu! (1972), Neu! 2 (1973), and Neu! 75 (1975)—before disbanding in 1975. They briefly reunited in the mid-1980s.
Neu! is the debut album by German krautrock band Neu!. It was released in 1972 by Brain Records. It was the first album recorded by the duo of Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger after leaving Kraftwerk in 1971. They continued to work with producer Konrad "Conny" Plank, who had also worked on the Kraftwerk recording sessions.
Neu! 75 is the third studio album by the krautrock band Neu!. It was recorded and mixed at Conny Plank's studio between December 1974 and January 1975. It was released in 1975 by Brain Records, and officially reissued on CD on 29 May 2001 by Astralwerks in the US and by Grönland Records in the UK.
Motorik is the 4/4 beat often used by, and heavily associated with, krautrock bands. Coined by music journalists, the term is German for "motor skill". The motorik beat was pioneered by Jaki Liebezeit, drummer with German experimental rock band Can. Klaus Dinger of Neu!, another early pioneer of motorik, later called it the "Apache beat". The motorik beat is heard in one section of Kraftwerk's "Autobahn", a song designed to celebrate exactly this experience. It is heard throughout Neu!'s "Hallogallo", from their self-titled album Neu!.
"Island in the Sun" is a song by the American rock band Weezer. It is the second single from the band's second self-titled album Weezer, released in 2001. "Island in the Sun" was not originally planned to be on the album, but producer Ric Ocasek fought for its inclusion. It was a successful radio single and perhaps the band's biggest hit ever outside of the United States, reaching No. 31 in the UK and No. 17 in France. In January 2002, the Australian Triple J Hottest 100 ranked the song 7 in its 2001 countdown. "Island in the Sun" is also the most-licensed track in the Weezer catalog. In 2009, Pitchfork named it the 495th greatest song of the 2000s.
Geoffrey Paul Barrow is an English music producer, composer, and DJ. He is a member of the bands Portishead, Beak, and Quakers, and he has scored several films.
The Horrors are an English rock band formed in Southend-on-Sea in 2005, consisting of lead vocalist Faris Badwan, guitarist Joshua Hayward, keyboardist and synthesizer player Tom Furse, bassist Rhys Webb, and drummer and percussionist Joe Spurgeon. Their music has been classified as garage rock, garage punk, gothic rock, shoegaze and post-punk revival.
New rave is a genre of music described by The Guardian as "an in-yer-face, DIY disco riposte to the sensitive indie rock touted by bands like Bloc Party." It is most commonly applied to a British-based music scene between 2005 and late 2008 of fast-paced electronica-influenced indie music that celebrated the late 1980s Madchester and rave scenes through the use of neon colours and using the term 'raving' to refer to going nightclubbing.
Faris Adam Derar Badwan is an English musician, best known as the lead vocalist of the Horrors, and more recently as half of Cat's Eyes.
Slow Life is an EP by the Welsh alternative rock band Super Furry Animals, released in 2004. The EP was made available as a free download and also saw a limited CD release, bundled with remix album Phantom Phorce. Lead track "Slow Life" appeared on the 2003 album Phantom Power and was originally composed as a purely electronic song by keyboardist Cian Ciaran several years earlier. The band were keen to finish the track and Ciaran encouraged them to jam over his original version—this jam was then edited and made into the finished song. The track "Motherfokker" is a collaboration between the Super Furry Animals and rap group Goldie Lookin Chain.
Third is the third studio album by the English band Portishead. It was released on 28 April 2008 in the United Kingdom by Island Records and a day later in the United States by Mercury Records. Portishead's first studio album in eleven years, Third moved away from the trip hop style they had popularised, incorporating influences such as krautrock, surf rock, doo wop and the film soundtracks of John Carpenter.
Primary Colours is the second studio album by English rock band The Horrors. It was released in the US on 21 April 2009, and in the UK on 4 May 2009 by XL Recordings.
Warpaint is an American indie rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 2004. The band consists of Emily Kokal, Theresa Wayman, Jenny Lee Lindberg, and Stella Mozgawa (drums).
Skying is the third studio album by British band The Horrors. The album was released on 11 July 2011 in the UK and on 9 August 2011 in the USA on XL Recordings.
Vinyl Williams is an American neo-psychedelic band led by Los Angeles-based multimedia artist and musician Lionel Williams, active since 2007. Vinyl Williams has released six studio albums: Lemniscate (2012), Into (2015), Brunei (2016), Opal (2018), Azure (2020), and Cosmopolis (2022).
The discography of English rock band The Horrors consists of five studio albums, four EPs, nineteen singles and fifteen music videos supporting the singles.
Futurology is the twelfth studio album by Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was released on 7 July 2014, through record label Columbia. The album features collaborations with Green Gartside, Nina Hoss, Georgia Ruth, Cian Ciaran and Cate Le Bon.
