Seepeoples [unedited] Music Review


Seespeoples

RascalZRecordZ

@jocronin65


According to Sunrise House American Addiction Treatment Facility Centers’ website, the arts and entertainment industry has the third highest overall rates of substance use from 2008 to 2012. That is 12.9% of the self-reported data from SAMHSA.

Out of that percentage, 11.5% also reported heavy use of alcohol.

9.5% of those cases were diagnosed...


At a young age, Will can remember his Dad playing the Santana III album being his earliest memories that attracted him to music, “I remember chasing the guitar parts from speaker to speaker. I don’t know why this was such a spark, but it was. The belief in the magic of music never left me since and my mind goes back to this memory every time I pull out that record.” Other inspirations include Radiohead’s album OK Computer, Will says he learned a lot about music from that one album.

Will Bradford started the band in Boston, MA in 2000, and for 11 years had seen great success. At times the band would play about 200 shows a year, opening for bands like Presidents of the USA, Death Cab for Cutie, Franz Ferdinand, and many more. According to an article from The Maine Edge, Will and his band members were forced to put a very sudden stop to Seepeoples. Constant touring brought on a cluster of problems for the band, which ultimately resulted in all members suffering from some sort of drug abuse. Will found himself slipping deeper than anyone, commenting that he “went to a dark place. Some call it heroin/crack island… I called it home. But I’m just thankful I remembered to bring my guitar with me.” Seeing the concern he was raising for his family, Will decided to go into rehab.

In July 2015, Seepeoples returned from their hiatus with Dead Souls Sessions, and the band have come out with various other singles and EPs leading up to their most recent release, Blink.


SeepeopleS fans are a small group of weirdos, libtards, nihilists, anarchists, drug addicts, convicts, artists, and other musicians especially. Anti-Genre Anarchist pop music isn’t for everyone, so as small of a group as our fan base may be, their loyalty is second to none. Honestly, after 20 years on the road, at this point I consider them ‘friends’ and not ‘fans.

Will Bradford (8/2/2020)

Listening to Seepeople is like listening to your whole Spotify music library on shuffle, you never know what you’ll get.

Shuffling such a random amount of music can be very bittersweet. Depending on your mood you might want the variety, but other times you absolutely hate it and instinctively turn on a playlist that fits what you want to hear.

That’s how labels see music, whatever fits what you want. You meaning the masses of people who generally like listening to one genre.

But that’s not exactly how experimental music projects work… You need to be open-minded, and that’s exactly what I did when taking on this review…

As a result, I actually liked what I heard. If you want to check out my thoughts, see my ratings all the way below the article.


I’ve been so lucky to record and play music with so many of my heroes, and even luckier that I get to call many of them my close friends now. I am truly blessed!

Will

So what is next for Seepeoples? The band is currently recording at Chillhouse Studios in Boston MA with long time co-producer Will Holland (Pixies, and Dead Can Dance). The album was slated for a late fall 2020 release in conjunction with the band’s 20th anniversary, but that has been postponed till 2021 along with the album release tour, due to the coronavirus. With many other musicians contributing to Field Guide For Survival in this Dying World, the album will be released through RascalZRecordZ.

Additionally, Will tells me that he is “also thrilled to announce that Pete List, the renown animator best known for his work on Celebrity Death Match / MTV, is doing another video for us. He was the animator and director of the ‘New American Dream’ video that was banned by Facebook / Instagram. I’ve seen some clips already and the video is stunning! Hopefully, this one won’t get banned.”

Seepeoples will continue to make music that defies any expectations. Will comments, “earlier in my career, the band took some meetings with some labels and management companies, and they always said the same thing, ‘focus on one kind of music,’ this is ‘impossible to sell.’  Every time I kept hearing that, it just made me want to, of course, do the exact opposite.  I started SeepeopleS as a musical project that I would never have to put walls around it, confine it, or essentially be restricted in any way.”

Keep a close eye on all the links provided below to make sure you don’t miss anything!


I would like to thank Will Bradford for keeping in touch leading up to this article, and I hope to meet him in the city in the near future!

Seepeoples links:

Unedited Music Blog links:

Hope everyone has a great week, and remember to respect other people and stay safe. If you feel sick then stay home, and/or if you go into public remember to follow your local public health/safety guidelines!


Blink by Seepeoples (2020) [Credit: Andrea Georgas]

Overall: 4.7/5

Blink: 4.8/5

The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill: 4/5

Hate: 4.6/5

Love: 4.8/5

Dead Souls Sessions: 4.5/5

Top Song: Fall in Rome (2015)


Simon Irvine [unedited]

Simon Irvine
Interview & Review

                  When I first started listening to Simon on #MonsterThread, I couldn’t figure out his genre. “It’s interesting, when I started doing this seriously, I was writing traditional pop songs – with lyrics and all. However, I have made music in a range of genres, from dub through to rock. If you had to pin me down on what I am doing at the moment though, I would say that I am broadly exploring two genres – electronic dance music and trip-hop” Simon tells me. 
                           In the last 20 months, he tells me that his fan base has grown, and his influence to start developing and producing music is rather similar to a lot of other artists. “I was inspired to start making music by my first-grade teacher, who handed me my first guitar. I went to a very small school – only 12 kids – so everyone there was taught the two things that the teacher loved – guitar and chess. I pretty much started making my own songs right from the start but got more serious about writing in high school when I took up keyboards and got my first sequencer.” The fact that he first learned how to play the guitar is actually pretty similar to many artists I’ve talked to. In fact, I have even learned how to play the guitar…. I actually own a Fender and acoustic guitar!
                      “Lots of things influence my songs. It can be the weather, work or even what my young son is enjoying. For example, my boy is a huge fan of straight-up techno, so I wrote Song For Stirling as a piece for him. I am also influenced by what I hear. As I have listened to more and more independent electronic music, I have been inspired to explore a broader range of sounds and structures.”

                            My favorite song by Irvine, “Dubbleboc (A Collage)”, is very different than his songs like “Natsu” and “Experiment Number 6”. Simon tells me that “Dubbleboc (a collage) was written about a year ago and was the first track where I started to seriously explore more ‘pure’ electronic sounds and marked my first attempt to develop a kind of trip-hop sound. It’s different to everything else on my debut EP – Pluralism but is definitely something I have explored more recently. With dubbleboc, I was really trying to play around with texture – to build up heavy and light passages using treated vocals alongside synth pads.” Other songs I like are “Experiment Number 6” and “MOTS” because the first song (Experiment Number 6) has a Kohilo-like feel to it with the singing in it and the  MOTS has a good house feel to it. Simon also tells me that his Spotify EP (Pluralism) cover art was done by a New Zealand artist/photographer, Maiken Calkoen, who Irvine met when he was traveling South America. “My most recent single – which is currently available for purchase through QRates, has an awesome cover photo done by a local (Brisbane, Australia) artist, Rina Farlow. For my Soundcloud and Bandcamp releases, I do all of my own cover design.”
                  “I have recently started doing remixes. My first was for Pixel Rust, who has included the remix on a limited edition CD of his latest EP. And I have just completed a slow, triply remix of a song by Lemonade Kid that will hopefully see the light of day in the not too distant future.”
                             In five years, Simon is hoping to still be making music with much enjoyment and happiness. For future tracks, “ideally, I would like to eventually devote more time to making music and further my production and writing skills. So, to that end, I am going to keep working my backside off with the aim of reducing the amount of time I have to spend at my day job and earning at least a little of what I love doing the most.” The tracks are on its way as soon as possible.
Overview: ★★★★1/2
Pluralism: ★★★★1/2

Google