Onward...
Ethereal. Love that word. Been getting a little too much use lately, however. It's not a rugged word, one must treat it delicately, like gossamer and meringue. I blame the New Age movement for its overuse! All the same, ethereal is the word that first comes to mind to describe the music of Sean Carey. Have to employ it. And on his new album Hundred Acres, released at the end of February, S. Carey has once again delivered a beautiful and, yeah - ethereal - collection of music.
Carey is also a member of Justin Vernon's Bon Iver. This is one of those cases where I like the "sideman's" work a whole lot more than the more famous group's. Not a big Bon Iver fan - find them too precious and overly self-indulgent, recent works so much so as to be unlistenable. Of course, some hail Vernon as an incredible innovator and artist. Music is subjective, and that's a beautiful thing.
I'm glad Bon Iver has an audience and support for the work - it just doesn't speak to me. Don't mean to belabor the point, just want to be clear I'm not a critic - please don't take my dismissal of anything as a judgement that something is BAD. As an independent creator, I know that what I make isn't for everyone. Neither is the work of any true artist - artistry is a blend of individual vision and universal message.
Fine art leans to the individual vision, mass art towards the universal. Too universal, one loses the art - sacrificing vision for mass appeal. Too individual, one loses the broader audience. However, with power in an individual vision, and some relation to the universals, an artist can still find their audience. And Bon Iver has. I'm not disrespecting Vernon. This world needs a whole lot more people realizing what they don't like isn't bad. It just isn't for them. Bon Iver isn't for me.
And I love Carey's solo work so much more! He leans more towards the universal, yet still explores the atmospheric soundscapes and employs the angelic, reverbed falsettos of early Bon Iver. Previous releases have been filled more with sonic meditations than traditionally structured songs. In fact, the Supermoon EP, his release prior to the new full length, was recorded during a Supermoon in 2014, and features some of his already sparse, atmospheric gems from his first two albums stripped down even further - just Sean on a hot mic to catch his breaths and breathy vocals, accompanied by his piano and occasionally a touch of strings.
I clued in to Carey's work with his last album, Range of Light, from early 2014, with the beautiful, haunting "Fire-Scene" - worth a listen, especially if you like the new track I'm about to bring you. And let's get to that, shall we?
"More I See" is representative of S. Carey's new work Hundred Acres and its more focused, structured songs. It still floats among the clouds - breathy vocals, strummed guitar... but there's maybe a little less reverb than in the past, and even a bit of a hook in the repetition of "...the more I see...". If you do enjoy this, be sure to check out more from S. Carey!
