Adam Casey is The Boy Who Spoke Clouds, a Melbourne project that explores textured sounds, creating ambient music that calls on the listener to think about life and our relationship with the world and people around us. His latest release The Seal Woman Suite is a musical accompaniment to an illustrated book, although it was originally written to soundtrack a dance piece some ten years ago.
Casey is a creative writer by profession, but he’s clearly fascinated with how to tell a story in as many ways as possible, to build a range of perspectives and responses into layers that help us return to a time when short stories served the purpose of prompting contemplation rather than avoiding it. Lying beneath much of the selfishness in society is a failure to see the world through the eyes of others, and this not only becomes significant to the theme of the story but in using different perspectives and art forms. It’s a little like a film broken down into its parts of story, characters, music, design and images as it explores the destruction we bring on others lives in the pursuit of comparatively unimportant self-interest, or as Casey puts it; “…explores self expression and the consequences of ignoring the foundation of who we are”.
The story of the seal woman, or the Selkie, is an allegorical tale that has variation in a few far Northern parts of the world such as Iceland, Northern Canada, and the Orkney, Shetland and Faroe islands. Casey has created his own version of the tale but the common elements of skin, choosing between two worlds, and control over others are all there. The music is not meant to be listened to while reading the book or looking at the illustrations, but there are sounds that tie the two together at particular points.
Let’s look at the music though and there are three main elements throughout the suite; the guitar, usually plucking arpeggios, that drives the speed of the story and reproduces movement such as walking, running and dancing; the drone that comes from a few different sources including vocals, and creates tension and mood; and the field recordings that connect the story to the location as well as providing a musical element.
It’s a short record - under half an hour - and this fits with the nature of this kind of story but also with the intention of it having a literary, visual and musical component. You are invited to consider it on completion as much as while you listen to it. Needless to say it works best in the dark without distraction and because most of the tracks run into each other it feels more like two tunes than nine. The naming of each track seems more about letting you know where the various points of the story are that link it to the text, rather than labelling each in a collection of songs. (The text of the book is reproduced as lyrics for each song on Bandcamp)
Casey prefers simple recording techniques and composition, but despite this the sound is clear rather than muddy lo-fi and contains some complex layers, so again this mirrors the deeper complexity of a story that seems relatively straightforward. I do find some of the field recordings and found instruments to be too prominent in the mix at times, but it’s not enough to detract from the overall beauty. For me it’s the progression that’s so captivating, with a wonderful flow that meanders beside the frequent use of repetition, sometimes harmoniously and at others at odds with each other.
One day, perhaps in decades, perhaps in centuries, I like to think we will return to a more grounded world of art, music, film, and written word. A world where we look more deeply and find satisfaction in things less shiny, where art is a movement and not an industry, community and not corporate.
Until that time it’s reassuring to know there remains a healthy underground that keeps these skills and the movement alive through the dreams and imagination of projects like The Boy Who Spoke Clouds. And at that time I hope someone reads these words:
The light swallowed,
my body enveloped
by my home.
Plummeting into the dark, held again
by my tight skin.
All around
they are just like me,
yelping in agreement.
Surrounded by what is mine. Home again!
Here I am, home again!
