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Second Two: Chapter Home

by Seward

supported by
Adela Donoval
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Adela Donoval This is home in an album. Home in music. Home in four genuine people that are musical activists of culture and art. But this physical manifestation of their music is just a small spec in the universe of their movement. You need to see them live and the way they welcome the venue they play in and the audience that accompany them. Wherever that is, you will feel at home. It's very very special. Favorite track: 1o 1a.
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1.
Sesame 05:52
Cloudy day… You’re still in my room. Your eyes hiding on my window. Liverpool: Your body on the ground. Our feet, still smiling and full of sorrow. Who is going? Anyday… Landing back in town. Turbulence. You’re sleeping on my shoulder. Springtime: I’m realizing I still miss you. Fugitives on the road to Denton. Who is going? Who is going to teach me now? There is a lot of places for two seeds of sesame. Is it your day my day?
2.
So Too Soon 06:16
There are fireworks in front of my house. Meanwhile, I kick out gentles and slacks. Military march covering my desk, celebrating deaths and victories. So late. Too soon. Soon. So Too Soon. You’ll die without prizes in lottery, ‘cause you bit pencils and chairs in school. A little bit of your codeine in my water. I’ll be dying before your car explodes. And you… Standing on the last corner of my neck. So late. Too Soon. So Too Soon. Your day is back: The bookstores are closed and the sun is not even a reason to wake up.
3.
Life 05:23 video
We calling you on time. Lights will cross again and again. Good camels, mighty fire. This is not a hurry end. This is not a hurry end. Working about. Anyhow. And just anyhow… Meds and measures from one mind.
4.
Our mornings are full of plastic words flying on waves over roads. We put our best clothes on and share points of view with a sweet kick. My afternoon sells you a five - minutes - dream cooked till cat falls all over your legs. Our writings keep calm riding lemons with shouted deaf answers. Your nights gave up in front of the sea that never existed at the living room and the doors were opened by a hundred of lovely hippopotamus born in anger.
5.
A Summer 05:01
There are no men on the earth. It’s time to die for believers. Do not spend your life by phone. Do not hear my sounds so closely (…fell happier than ever…). And most important thing: “Do not miss your youngest days”. Say goodbye to your sons and daughters, feel loneliest for these weeks, your laughs don’t know how to say goodbye, without... In coma by surprises and coke (…fell happier than ever…).
6.
This Amount 04:28
Said “Promise:”, said “Keep your eyes on the line” two days before. Her attention paid on business with true mercy. Bring your family on that night bus across the cold desert. She is waiting, she promised. He lies and folds your suitcase asking to share a coin. He talks to the ticket seller about the best cookies he ever ate. Sleeps in the empty lobby between rental bikes and visitors maps. He looks at you and just laughs away, away…
7.
1o 1a 05:34
Learn about this hand written life: It’s just some kind of violent rain, a way of calling below the thunder. In the meantime, things are going to change on the third part. I meant to sleep half a day. Who can watch himself on a movie? He does, he needs to touch the pigeons. Its 10:00AM. Now it’s half past ten. This is the shape of the lights of the city. Refuse to accept the sound of the heating system. Is there some smell around? A smell which can change my memories? The pictures of that time? The name of the city? A mountain with a lake to throw yourself from: Nothing easier than a dozen of tones. I remember an old deaf man painting a winter on a table made of wings, food and buildings. We’re going to play dominoes again and he’s gonna make your hand burn with a spoon.
8.
What I’ve learnt from the distance is emptiness. It’s a dependence war. Read your letters from the shore as a brother. A shore of rocks in the shade, with a pack of musts and shakes. Creeping through, and that position (weird), breathing. Could you see the light? Can you see it? It’s a polish green, where we get there and clean the bathroom. Lately we’ve been cooking apples. Expectation drops.

about

When you hear a band with something different about them, something unique, that rare and precious quality, the shock of the new, you just know.

Barcelona’s Seward are extraordinary. A four-piece that don’t go in for typical song structures, that captivate one minute with a heart-tugging melody, before collapsing into thrilling noise the next. They ascend from delicate acoustic beauty to dissonant chaos, from atmospheric samples to scrunching wreckage. Pablo plays synths, effects and guitar, Adriano sings, Jordi plays bass and Juan is on drums but the band use banjos, wind-up toys, samples, whatever comes to hand to realise their incandescent vision.

Their third album Second Two: Chapter Home and first for Naim Records (home of the Mercury Prize-nominated Eska) is a stunning work of art. A record to get lost in. These are unconventional, original songs that ditch the tired verse-chorus-verse structure but trigger the same addiction cravings that the best pop music can.

It’s the follow-up and third part of a trilogy of albums that began with 2011’s Home: Chapter One and continued with 2014’s Home Was a Chapter Twenty Six. Mixed and mastered by regular collaborator Matt Pence (Midlake, American Music Club, John Grant) at his Denton, Texas studio The Echo Lab (“He’s always been part of the band. He really gets it. He’s a scientist, amazing!” Seward say), it’s their definitive album. Second Two: Chapter Home encompasses so much and demands to be heard in its entirety.

In places Seward evoke Radiohead, in others, Tom Waits or Godspeed You Black Emperor. There are echoes of Jeff Buckley’s celestial vox and the transcendence of Arcade Fire or cult band The Books. Hints of jazz, rumours of folk, Kosmische, post rock and touches of electronics. But combined in such a dazzling, inventive way: uncontrived, thrillingly alive.
All is bound together by the singer Adriano’s soaring voice. It’s an expressive instrument with singular phrasing, dancing dexterously in-between the music, changing style and delivery but always a deeply emotional presence.

Formed after meeting at the regular WTF jam session at the Jamboree club in Barcelona – four musicians who instantly knew they must become a band when they started playing together – each member brings a distinctive identity to the project that melds into the unique Seward sound.
“All the musicians in this band are from very different scenes,” Seward say. “Theatre, experimental rock, poetry. Juan came from traditional Brazilian music. Jordi played with flamenco singers. The influences are completely different. It could sound like some bands, but we’re more influenced by our lives. Other things that are not music.”

They call their music ‘free song’. It’s a new appellation for a new musical age, a determination to avoid using those same genre names that haven’t changed for decades.
They’re a band borne from live performance. They thrive upon it. Their recordings always aim to capture the feeling of playing live. You can hear the room, the air. The sense of space; the tension and electricity.

The band’s telepathic communication abounds on Second Two: Chapter Home. Each player with a vision that melts in perfect synchronicity. Each song is an atmosphere, dreamlike: a chapter, and the lyrics are closer to poetry than a run of the mill love song. Roles are adopted and identities assumed.
“It’s different characters talking like any performance, movie or theatre show,” Seward say. “We really like the idea of the audience taking part in that story and imagining what’s happening next."

Seward have picked up plaudits from music sites Line of Best Fit and A New Band A Day, performed for John Kennedy’s XFM show and picked up a growing host of fans from stellar live performances at SXSW in the States, the UK’s Great Escape festival, Vive Latino in Mexico, Exit in Serbia, Sziget in Hungary, Pohoda in Slovakia and Spain’s Primavera Sound. Seward prefer to let their music breathe. They haven’t opted for the usual online portals to get their music out there. To hear their album, you need to buy it.

credits

released June 3, 2016

Written, composed, arranged & performed by Seward.

This is a Single Take Recording Made at La Casa Murada & The Echo Lab.

Engineered by Jordi Colomé & Matt Pence.
Mixed & Mastered by Matt Pence at The Echo Lab, Denton, Texas. Vinyl cut at Abbey Road Studios by Christian Wright.
Produced by Seward.

Friends Who Played Freely Through The Original Surfaces: Pierce Camarasa Monsch Del Moral.

Gently Managed by Terry McNally.
Art Work by Carlos Cuadrado.
Pictured by Seward. Band picture shot at Blau Trama & Emporio Mandarosso by Pablo Leoni.

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