Cadence with Sea of Tranquility - An Interview

Shoegaze, ah o shoegaze, aqui no TBTCI, motivo de adoração máxima, obviamente.

E quando uma banda como os japoneses do Sea of Tranquility aparecem, é motivo de comemoração máxima. Os alicerces para os singles "Cadence" (maravilhosamente enigmática) e "Pisces" (beleza em forma de canção), são claramente Slowdive, Cocteau Twins e MBV, não há como negar.

Camadas e mais camadas de guitarras cristalinas e espaciais, uma verdadeiro deleite para os apaixonados por shoegaze.

Audição absolutamente obrigatória.

***** Interview with Sea of Tranquility *****

Q. When did Sea of Tranquility start? Tell us about the history…
We started in 2014, at the time when all of us were university students. Most of us met from the Music Club of our university. Our Bassist - Yan and Guitarist - Lunch came up with an idea of forming a shoegaze band when they realized they have similar taste in music. Soon, they invited our very first Vocal - Ellen and Guitarist - Sam to join the band. Once, our Drummer - Tommy just passed by the practising room and we just asked him to be our drummer, and this formed our initial lineup. Like most of the bands, we did start with covering some songs, from Radiohead, from Slowdive and from Daughter, and we soon started to write our songs. After one and a half year, our first Vocal - Ellen had to move to New Zealand for working, then we found Faye to be our Vocal until now.

Q: Who are your influences?
Well… the bands embracing classic shoegaze and dream pop textures have been influencing us a lot, like: Slowdive, MBV, Lush, Cocteau Twins, Eternal, etc. Apart from these bands, our members have a very wide spectrum of taste in music, we do always listen to some Post-rock bands like Sugar Plum Ferry and Mono. Some of these elements exist in our songs.

Q. Make a list of 5 albums of all time…
Diiv - Oshin (Yan)
Beach House - Bloom (Faye)
Slowdive - Souvlaki (Sam)
MBV - Loveless (Lunch)
甜梅號 - 金光之鄉 (Tommy)

Q. How do you feel playing live?
In fact, we are quite shy and introvert like most shoegaze bands. We just can’t stare at the audience, instead, we just try hard to focus and look at the floor to make us feel secure. Honestly, every live performance is a great time to polish our skills technically and psychologically for us. We do enjoy the time being on stages even we are nervous and stoned most of the time. It’s always a valuable experience to perform on a stage, to share our emotion, to play some noise, to connect with the audience...

Faye: Could someone do the MC for me… (shy)

Q. How do you describe Sea of Tranquility sounds?
It’s a very interesting question. We think “Oceanic” and “Lacustrine” are the best words to describe our sound. Sometime, we sound tranquil and ambient like a lake of shattered mirror. Sometime, we sound violent and vigorous like a stormy sea with hurricane when we explode our energy with wall of sound. Also, we’d love to add different elements into our music, as you can find the trace of Post-rock and Ambient in our songs.

There are reviews saying that our songs sounds like Slowdive or Cocteau Twins. It’s definitely a compliment, however, we started to avoid this because it’s always fun to make our songs sound like “Us” instead of others as we hate copying other bands. We would like to make people know it’s our song when it’s played on a radio or something else, and this is what we have been trying to do.

Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs ?
The first demo named "Pisces" was actually recorded in our guitarist Sam’s residential hall, using an simple audio interface and Macbook. The mixing works were performed in his home (on his bed). The second demo was recorded and mixed with the aid of our friend - Andrew Kan in the studio of The Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. We can’t afford expensive recording equipments as most of us are students, and we tried our best to make the sound of demos striking a balance of crystal and vagueness. Hopefully we can spend some money to make a decent record in a professional studio someday.

Q. Which new bands do you recommend?
Forsaken Autumn, FOR… , I mean us, Ninetynine Floor, CheeseBurger.

Faye: My favourite band in Hong Kong is TUX. They are also the sound from the ocean, I would say.

Q: Which band would you love to made a cover version of?
Desktop Error! This is a very good shoegaze band in Asia, but we have to learn some Thai to do a cover of their songs...

Q: What are your plans for the future?
We will continue composing new songs, hope that we can record and release an EP soon! Besides this, we always wanna step out of comfort zone trying something new and something exciting to create new sound of us. Touring with local shoegaze bands is always our dream and ultimate goal. It would be great if we can really make a tour in some countries like Japan and Taiwan.

Q: Any parting words?
Thanks the love all the way from Brazil! Hope that there will be chance to perform in Brazil !
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Thanks

https://seaoftranquilityhk.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/seaoftranquilityhk