Seawind of Battery - East Coast Cosmic Dreamscaper (2024) [Hi-Res]

Following up Seawind of Battery’s stellar debut album, Clockwatching, wasn’t going to be an easy task, but with East Coast Cosmic Dreamscaper, Mike Horn met that challenge and delivered an album rich with grace, soul and even cheer.

For me, Seawind of Battery’s first record was a defining record of the early post-COVID era. It provided the balm that many of our tired, stress-addled minds craved. Its melty slide guitar and clouds of gentle fingerpicking that glide over soft drones eased my weary nerves in those transitional months as life finally started to return to something resembling normalcy. This is also what I felt when Mike Horn made his live debut as Seawind at one of Record Crates United’s DIY garden party shows. I stood in the back of my yard during the outdoor performance as honeybees drifted lazily from flower to flower on my tomato plants, perfectly in sync with Horn’s relaxed melodies. This calm and picturesque scene was the ultimate visual embodiment of the Seawind of Battery sound and vibe, and it will forever be associated in my brain whenever I hear his distinctive guitar tone and atmosphere. Thankfully, this specific pastoral quality that first hooked me to Horn’s music is very much present in this new record, however it has certainly evolved and expanded in various exciting ways.

On East Coast Cosmic Dreamscaper, you are treated to guitar-oriented sound baths that are certainly akin to the first LP, yet some tracks diverge from Horn’s earlier work through the addition of electro dance beats, like on the pulsing “New Moon,” while others, like “Maze of Roses,” veer off into a more lush, psychedelicized country vein. The latter of these two features a dense, prismatic atmosphere of strings, partially thanks to the lap steel provided by Jarrod Annis, of whom became an official Seawind member after he started backing Horn up at live appearances back in late ’22.

While the tone of the record is a peaceful one, much like the first album, there is unquestionably a quicker pace. It’s like Clockwatching was made to soothe some of the trauma we all endured during the pandemic, and this one is telling us that it’s now time to get up and finally live.

The surging beats of songs like “Dreamscaper” and the aforementioned “New Moon” make you want to jump to your feet and move, while even the more mellow moments of the album groove with a lively tempo. Tracks like “Stay” may be spacey ambient pieces, but they float you along with the velocity of a steadily rolling stream.

From playing in my backyard to gigging in the UK and the European continent and jamming with other luminaries of today’s cosmic underground from Matt LaJoie to Emergency Group, it’s been quite the active few years for Seawind of Battery. To hear all of this progress and experience culminating into this solid sophomore LP is a joy to behold. May the rest of the world soon know its pleasures and take inspiration from it to get up and really live.

- Keith Hadad (Record Crates United)

Tracklist:
1-1. Seawind of Battery - Blood Moon (04:26)
1-2. Seawind of Battery - New Moon (08:00)
1-3. Seawind of Battery - Supernatural (05:08)
1-4. Seawind of Battery - Maze of Roses (02:40)
1-5. Seawind of Battery - Dreamscaper (04:04)
1-6. Seawind of Battery - Stay (06:51)