'Fall To Ocean' by Barnabas
Review
It's a big bonus when artists you respect have such a broad range of musical interests that they need to put them out under different names: I suppose confusion dodging is the reason but I personally suspect that music lovers have the flexibility to embrace diversity: it's the music media & the music industry who struggle to deal with those who operate in several of the artificial boxes they construct to imprison people in.
‘Fall To Ocean', the new Phoebe Court release (under her ‘Barnabas' moniker) is a world away from her work with The Caroline Bomb: briefly while the latter might be said to be on a mission to wake people up,
"To Fall To Ocean is
To Reflect
To Relax
To De-stress
To Heal
To Sleep
To Dream"
Quite the contrast.
Another Barnabas gifted therapeutic programme a la ‘Lucia's Method', ‘Fall To Ocean' is made up of the tracks "Fall To", "Ocean Dance", "Ocean Wash", "Ocean Rest", "Ocean Breath", "Ocean Glide", "Ocean Shimmer"(which seems to be her favourite) and "Rise To Bubbles".
She draws on the power of the ocean to drive this album & with its tradition as a source of mindfulness generation & therapeutic balm, that's fine by me. Also, she sent it me yesterday mid way through a stressful day so not only could I have a think about the musical qualities, I could put it to my own uses immediately. Thank you.
Given my gratitude for helping me in that way, I'm not sure whether ‘Fall To Ocean' has thereby slipped over into another category other than that which usually requires a conventional musical critique: but here goes.
My first observation I suppose is round the structure & compositional nature of the album. Mindfulness records tend (as far as I can tell) towards extended pieces designed for immersion. The mere fact that we have here eight discrete ones is unusual. Equally while most fall within a band of nearly five minutes to nearly nine (quite respectable if you're looking to submerge), "Ocean Glide" is around four & the opener barely a minute and a half: so norms are being challenged here.
"Ocean Shimmer" is indeed a very "musicianly" track: possibly the most conventionally performed Barnabas one I've yet heard and certainly shows off her guitar skills: very alluring & embracing, this one enfolds and caresses as the mission promises.
However Phoebe's humour & courage to launch into something & see where it goes are also evident: the opening track takes off from where ‘Lucia' ended: a bit bonkers & possibly intended to evoke the confused state of mind which the rest of the album aims to remedy?
On "Ocean Glide" (which nudges the symphonic) we get a saxophone and on the final track a host of less conventional instrumentation including "wood, glass & leg tapping", "mouth sounds", "hand sounds" and the mysterious "jumper": all of which do combine into something soothing (with the promised bubbles) and above all determines that what we don't get just a homogenous blend of agreeable treated guitars, vocals & synths which no doubt would do the trick & is probably how a lot of mindfulness records are created. Here instead we have wit and variety: both of which I welcome in any context.
If the festive season is for you something of a psychological minefield, you could do worst than equip yourself with this set of remedies before it kicks off.
