Vondelpark // Seabed

Vondelpark released album Seabed on Belgian label R&S last month. The Peckham-based trio's debut LP carries a decade of dreamy, murky and slow-paced tracks that blend together into something surprisingly uplifting.

Opener Quest is dominated by a guitar riff that swings and grooves while vocalist Lewis Rainsbury contemplates his getting older and suggests that he might be planning a lunar expedition. The track also features chimes and wonky synth leads, hinting early on that a broad instrumental palette will be employed on Seabed. Pianos come to the fore and vocals recede on follower Blue Again, the happy-sad theme beginning to emerge.

The album takes its first real emotional plunge with Dracula, a slow-moving track blending warbled lyrics with pulsing bass hits and reverberating chords. Equally suited to late-night listening or the morning after the night before, this track is a heavy-hitter with real attitude and a weight about it. If it's not intoxicating, it is the recovery position.

California Analog Dream - which preceded Seabed's release as its lead single - introduces elements of Americana to an already diverse soundscape. The track's lonely wailing harmonica and sea-breeze sweeps are evocative of Neil Young's Heart of Gold and Harvest Moon respectively. Steel drums help lighten the mood as we enter the album's latter stages.

Despite an honest bassline and some of Lewis' more intelligible vocals, the title track creates one of the trippiest sounds on the entire album. This experience is laid-down with an intricate, twitchy riff that hovers about. The licks are more full-on, self-assertive way-markers on an otherwise meandering voyage.

Curtain call Outro for Ariel is a beautiful track, the piano tripping over itself deliberately to create an unsure and echo-ey vibe over the first 2 minutes. The rhythm then peels away and Mr. Rainsbury leaves us with the gloomy refrain:

"I'm on the Seabed / Might as well just be dead"

Vondelpark's is an electronic sound, but that is not to say that these lads are into making harsh and clangy robot music. There is none of the cold, stripped-down musical emptiness whose questionable merits have been tirelessly expounded by the xx Zane Lowe of late. A cool, relaxed atmosphere is created on Seabed which ebbs and flows between tracks and within them. The beats are soft and fuzzy, the drums are trippy. There is a subtlety about Vondelpark's use of synthesisers which makes this a gentler electronica, one which brings to mind the slow, dark material released in recent years by German labels such as Get Physical Music and Kompakt. Seabed is downtempo and nocturnal but it will also make a great addition to that special collection you reserve for your roughest Sunday mornings.

Like the Amsterdam park from which the band takes its name, Seabed is reclaimed. It draws on a multitude of influences, blending sounds without sounding layered. It will take several listens to fully get inside and this is a rewarding experience - somehow there's a euphoria derived from all this hauntedness. Hit play and see where it takes you.

CJ09/10 Great listening for sunny days and during/after sleepless nights.
Playlist it with:
Art of Noise // Moments in Love
David Kitt // The Big Romance
Elektrochemie // Don't Go EP
Nathan Fake // Drowning in a Sea of Love
Sade // Diamond Life