Latest full-length album from Keith Seatman is A Skip and a Song to see us Along (K.S. AUDIO), following from his “bittersweet” sojourn by the seaside on Sad Old Tatty Bunting from 2022.
There’s not much more I can add to what has already been written about this talented creator, but he certainly gets better and better at realising every nook and cranny of the imaginary post-war Britain fiction-scapes he delineates with his fully-charged digital paintbrush. As to that, he is one of the few contemporary electronics experts whose work always seems to be in “full colour” – an entirely subjective appraisal, a bit like asking a fellow if they dream in colour – but yellows, reds and oranges are sure to fly from your speakers when a Seatman disk is spinning on the deck. What I’m feeling on today’s outing is how each tune contains at least two or more central ideas, one layered on top of the other and creating an exciting push-pull dynamic as the sound slithers along like a gigantic multi-rainbow python. Other familiar elements: each tune’s title resembles a chapter heading from an imaginary Puffin paperback of 1962; the upbeat mood and over-crowded audio panorama ever-ready to tip over into a menacing mood as the occasion demands it.
Is it my imagination, or are there more human voices in the mix this time? They chatter and squeal, setting riddles…starting out as friendly pixies then turning into nasty goblins. Ever-hinting at supernatural forces in the mode of Alan Garner, but I’d love it if one day Seatman took a deep-dive into the unknown, precariously balanced betwixt the benign and the malevolent. I suppose a project featuring imaginary theme music for The Silver Chair, or Out of the Silent Planet, is too much to ask for? (11/07/2024)
Thank you Ed for your review. Always appreciated.
“a deep-dive into the unknown, precariously balanced betwixt the benign and the malevolent”
You never know : )