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Album Review

British Sea Power
Man of Aran Rough Trade

Article written by Matt H - May 11, 2009

British Sea Power - Irish Sea Power

There’s a school of thought that has British Sea Power down as a bog-standard indie band with a few gimmicks - on-stage foliage, bears, Countryfile appearances, that sort of thing. By sound tracking 1934 movie Man of Aran, BSP have - in their own unhistrionic way - had their own 4REAL moment.

In some ways it’s not really as if BSP are soundtracking the film but rather that, in this monochrome homage to the simplicity and difficulties of old island life, they’ve found the perfect visual template for their themes. The inky black seas and windswept landscapes meet the warm nature of humanity in a thoroughly BSP way. The film’s very ‘fakery’ (the family portrayed are not a family at all and their acts reflect the island’s history rather than a contemporary portait of their life) in making its point recalls BSP’s self-conscious approach to prodding at the concepts of Britishness and identity.

All of which makes for a fine match. The soundtrack, mixing orchestral and rock approaches, is by turns intimate, sedate, urgent, sweeping and thunderingly dissonant noise. That it contains bits from all of the band’s earlier albums, including apparent reworkings of the Great Skua and True Adventures, only goes to prove the point that - far from bog-standard indie - they’ve been lacing what they do with this sort of thing all along. Any danger that it would sound incongruous is prevented by both the 70s krautrock echoes of the music and the apparent modernity of the film itself. There’s a freshness in the images(the child clambering out of the rocks presages Truffaut by 30-odd years) and the often quick-fire editing (doubtless a function of having to shoot difficult scenes with huge, static equipment, but thoroughly modern nonetheless) which means that the film and soundtrack are both equally out of their own time.

On its own, the soundtrack stands alongside the better post-rock albums, full of atmosphere and passion. While you wouldn’t want BSP to drop entirely their more accessible riffery and pop tunes, this is ambitious, interesting and often fun, and could be the “don‘t care” statement that finally makes BSP really matter.

Links:
http://www.britishseapower.co.uk/
http://www.roughtraderecords.com/
http://www.myspace.com/britishseapower