Some of you may know M.CAMBRIDGE (Mark McCambridge) as the singer and songwriter-in-chief of Belfast-based band ARBORIST who we’ve previously featured. Sea Songs: Anatomy of a Drowning Man is a project that he’s been painstakingly pulling together over the last 18 months. Featuring sea songs based on old shanties, Ulster weaver-poet poems, traditional ballads and original compositions, it’s one of the most beautiful and remarkable albums I’ve heard this year.
Interspersed with recorded tales and music, it walks among the ghosts of the past with an inventive contemporary vision that’s impossible not to be moved by. I could happily listen to this on repeat all day – inspiring, original and a brilliant concept.
Listen in full to the album below and watch an insightful and honest short documentary by Sam O’Mahony on the album’s making.
Over the past 18 months, Mark has followed his love of folk music out into the sea and onto the decks of 19th-century packet ships from Ireland, England, the USA and beyond. From interpreting old Sea Shanties – archived by the late, great Stan Hugill – to the weaver poets of Ulster and original songs inspired by those he met along the way, he brings us Sea Songs: Anatomy of a Drowning Man.
Part recorded in a Curfew Tower, owned by Bill Drummond, in the County Antrim, seaside village of Cushendall, the songs are littered with soundscapes and tales from a cast of scholarly sea-dogs but have been unashamedly pulled into the modern age with thrumming guitars, children’s choirs and scattered rhythms. “Like the moon on the tide, the sea has always had a certain command over me,” Mark says, “ I imagine it to be the same for most of us in this part of the world; we are island people. And in an age of constant noise over borders, place and identity, there is a wonderful escapism in the sea, a comfort to its landlessness. And there are centuries of music in its fathoms.”
Set to be released on 28th June 2019 [Digital and CD], Sea Songs: Anatomy of a Drowning Man is a poignant ode and worthy update to the vast tradition of sea song.
Pre-Order the album through bandcamp and get My Sailor Boy as an immediate download.