Grand Salvo – Sea Glass, Vinyl LP

Grand Salvo – Sea Glass, Vinyl LP

Sea Glass is Grand Salvo's (Paddy Mann) seventh album, and his Mistletone debut. This richly allegorical album explores how a single, vivid memory can shape who we are; resurfacing and altering our thoughts and recollections as the years go by. The album's very structure is an approximation of how such a memory is forged; each song radiates out from a seed memory which unfolds like a lotus jewel in Field of Flowers, the second-last song and the only "straight" narrative song of this remarkable album.

The album then closes with Standing On The Sea, a dreamlike journey on the beach that uncovers "a shard of sand smoothed emerald glass / and a change in the light", layering the dreams of childhood and the memories of adulthood into a woozy contemplation of eternity and the cyclic, ever evolving nature of memory.

Sea Glass was recorded using a number of non-western instruments including qanun (Persian dulcimer), kora (African harp), koto (Japanese stringed instrument) and Indian percussion, with a heady female chorus (Laura Jean, Lisa Salvo, Hannah Cameron, Michelle Surowiec) reprised throughout the album, woven through the narrative like a recurring dream.

A Flux of Moments
All Those Stars
In the Shade
Strange Days
The Unquiet Tide
In the Water
The Black Coast
Field of Flowers
Standing on the Sea