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Requiem For The Monk Seal

from We Are Not Where You Are by Jamie Flett

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about

Like ‘Redemption of the White Tailed Sea Eagle,’ this was made for a compilation of music released in connection with Remembrance Day for Lost Species ( www.lostspeciesday.org ) The original version was made 5 years ago and was named ‘Order of the Water:’ remembrancespecies.bandcamp.com/track/order-of-the-water It’s been reworked and refreshed with re-written and re-recorded vocals among other things. Listening to the first version now it sounds like a rougher and readier demo.

It was always an experiment with drone and it’s all based on one note really, there’s a single picked guitar note that runs through the whole thing that I played for the six or so minutes rather than looping. That’s the anchor and bedrock but in my mind at least, it somehow doesn’t get old to listen to and remains alive because every single pick is just slightly different. It was also good on this updated version for singing modal type, monk-ish, plainsong-esque parts and whacking cathedral sized reverb on it to sound a bit like Gregorian chants. A very obvious reference to the extinct seal in question’s nickname but sonically lots of fun to do and, I thought, more interesting than the funereal vocal dirge notes on the original attempt. There are other references in the lyrics to the Western European explorers who encountered the seals and first recorded them (and a more oblique reference to Neil Young and Crazy Horse), calling them sea-wolves and hunting them for food and the oil in their blubber partly because they behaved practically as if they were tame. That merciless hunting for their oil continued down the centuries and along with overfishing of their natural food sources contributed to their extinction in the middle of the 20th century.

lyrics

Seawolves of green
In the aquamarine

Columbus: he named their brotherhood
When Cortez came, he killed them too

Order of the water
Caribbean Brotherhood

Seawolves of green

credits

from We Are Not Where You Are, released June 2, 2023

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Jamie Flett Glasgow

Music maker from Aberdeen in the North East of Scotland, now living in Glasgow.
Since my first collection of skewed, folkish blues songs: ‘Cold But Bright’ I’ve tried to resist the artificial limitations of defining myself as a ‘singer-songwriter’ (admittedly, while writing and singing songs.) This has resulted in attempts to investigate some remoter sonic territories.. As well as more songs. ... more

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