A Celebration Of 7 Shows 24 Hours & 1 City.
“We performed seven shows and two halves in twenty four hours. We celebrated our first release with Naim Records, by walking through our city, dancing and eating with our audience, with our friends. This piece honours all those people, all the ghosts, books and animals who accompanied us that day and all who couldn’t join us but wanted to. Thank you sincerely.”
When you hear a band with something different about them, something unique, that rare and precious quality, the shock of the new, you just know.
Barcelona’s Seward are extraordinary. A four-piece that don’t go in for typical song structures, that captivate one minute with a heart-tugging melody, before collapsing into thrilling noise the next. They ascend from delicate acoustic beauty to dissonant chaos, from atmospheric samples to scrunching wreckage. Pablo plays synths, effects and guitar, Adriano sings, Jordi plays bass and Juan is on drums but the band use banjos, wind-up toys, samples, whatever comes to hand to realise their incandescent vision.
Their third album Second Two: Chapter Home and first for Naim Records (home of the Mercury Prize-nominated Eska) is a stunning work of art. A record to get lost in. These are unconventional, original songs that ditch the tired verse-chorus-verse structure but trigger the same addiction cravings that the best pop music can.
It’s the follow-up and third part of a trilogy of albums that began with 2011’s Home: Chapter One and continued with 2014’s Home Was a Chapter Twenty Six. Mixed and mastered by regular collaborator Matt Pence (Midlake, American Music Club, John Grant) at his Denton, Texas studio The Echo Lab (“He’s always been part of the band. He really gets it. He’s a scientist, amazing!” Seward say), it’s their definitive album. Second Two: Chapter Home encompasses so much and demands to be heard in its entirety.
All is bound together by the singer Adriano’s soaring voice. It’s an expressive instrument with singular phrasing, dancing dexterously in-between the music, changing style and delivery but always a deeply emotional presence.
Formed after meeting at the regular WTF jam session at the Jamboree club in Barcelona – four musicians who instantly knew they must become a band when they started playing together – each member brings a distinctive identity to the project that melds into the unique Seward sound.
“All the musicians in this band are from very different scenes,” Seward say. “Theatre, experimental rock, poetry. Juan came from traditional Brazilian music. Jordi played with flamenco singers. The influences are completely different. It could sound like some bands, but we’re more influenced by our lives. Other things that are not music.”
They haven’t opted for the usual online portals to get their music out there. To hear their album, you need to buy it. https://www.roughtrade.com/music/second-two-chapter-home
Seward could be your new favourite group. And they’re about to begin their most momentous chapter yet. Time to turn the page and make your own discovery.
Seward’s album is released on Naim Records exclusively on vinyl, CD and HD download. https://www.roughtrade.com/music/second-two-chapter-home
Track listing: 1 – Sesame 2 – So Too Soon 3 – Life 4 – Sweet Kick 5 – A Summer 6 – This Amount 7 – 1o1a 8 – Question Marks 9 – Capture Spirals [Bonus Track]
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