Son Of Sea
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The Westminsters - The Westminsters EP
2008, Lumpy Records
The Westminsters is comprised of Martin MacDonald and anyone he happens to pull into a recording session. This Brisbane, Australia musician recorded The Westminsters EP in six days in his bedroom using ProTools and pure chutzpah. The result is a gorgeously melancholy EP that is both inspiring and smooth. The fact that it is available for free download through the band’s website is an added bonus.
Lush, lush, lush. That is the primary word that comes to mind when thinking about The Westminsters and their self-titled EP. The Westminsters offer up a brand of melancholy acoustic rock that reminds me of Jason Plumb and The Waltons. A Vest & Hat is a gorgeous musical painting in the fine brush strokes of guitar and filled out to orchestral proportions. The harmonies here will wrap you up like sunshine breaking through the clouds or the voices of angels upon a revelation. For Your Seasons has a pleasant melody that is intrinsically familiar at once. The song opens with guitar voice and the occasional accoutrement of a rinky-tink piano. For Your Seasons breaks unexpectedly 55 seconds in and returns morphed into a full band sound that is both faithful to and expansive of the opening.
How Quickly Does Your Smile Fade Away is perhaps my favorite song here (although my choice for favorite keeps changing). It's here that I most associate The Westminsters with The Waltons. The lyrics are intelligent and musical with that certain touch of melancholy that lifts them up into rarified territory. The musical arrangement as across the rest of The Westminsters EP is sublime. The EP closes with Too Many Souls, a strident calling out of a relationship in classic Americana colors. The circular melody line on this one does get a little repetitive, but the chorus soars and the playing is wonderfully vibrant.
The Westminsters come out of nowhere with four songs that firmly place their feet on the Americana map. The Westminsters EP is one of the more pleasant surprises of 2008. Hopefully we'll be hearing more from them soon.
Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)
You can learn more about The Westminsters at http://www.thewestminsters.com/, where you can download The Westminsters EP for free (including liner notes). Be sure to check out their other 2008 EP, Some Reasonable Fiction on iTunes. - Wildy's World
"That this solo recording project, professional yet rustic, took place in a bedroom somewhere in Brisbane, is a testament to the possibilities ProTools enables budding young troubadours. The warm, textured and sincerely heartfelt vocals of Martin MacDonald, singing poppy ballads over an arrangement of guitar, bass and drum, has a very Australian feel that follows traditions created by the likes of Powderfinger and You Am I. This, together with the raw lo-fi aesthetics of home recording, results in an album that is very easy to relate to and connect with. Now a full four-pieced band, no doubt The Westminsters will only become more outstanding as they gain the experience and maturity to continue carving out a more distinct and unique sound for themselves."
Yen Tran - Scene Magazine (Brisbane), Issue 747, June 11th - Scene Magazine, Brisbane
Did anyone else think it was lame when Bernard Fanning began a solo project that was, essentially, a more tedious Powderfinger album in everything but name? Jeez, at least Daniel Johns and Thom Yorke had the decency to tweak the formula a bit. This is why I was surprised to read that Christian Duell (of Brisbane band Mr Rascal) was also a member of The Westminsters, both bands emerging from the same set of indie-pop influences of Big Star, The Shins, Neil Young etc. But I'm a lot more forgiving of Duell than I am of Mr Fanning, largely because the output of both The Westminsters and Mr Rascal are pretty darn enjoyable. Some Reasonable Fiction is seven short pop-rock songs, the type I previously thought didn't exist in angsty Brisbane town at the moment. While I mourn this fact (i.e. feel sorry for myself), you can listen to the acoustic-based melancholy of Sad Demonstration, or the brooding contempt in Hand In My Pie, counter-balanced by sweet harmonies and the surprising inclusion of a xylophone. That's the wooden one, right? Right.
Mitch Alexander - Rave Magazine (Brisbane), June 24th, 2008 - Rave Magazine, Brisbane
The new Westminsters had better be careful; their "lo-fi" recordings are starting to feel dangerously professional. Luckily, just sounding good doesn't mean sounding slick. These tracks are indie pop at its bittersweet best, tough truths and small revelations all riding on a fine melody. - Cnet download.com
Discography
Things From The Dreaded Green Bag [incremental LP, 2010]
Worms [LP, 2008]
The Westminsters EP [EP as 'The Westminsters', 2008]
Some Reasonable Fiction [EP as "The Westminsters", 2008]
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Bio
Chapter One – Son Of Sea's Dreaded Green Bag
What is a dreaded green bag? Is it actually dreadful, does it possess the capability of being dreaded? Is it really green, or is it even a bag? Does it even matter? For Son Of Sea's purposes, it could have been anything, but the green bag was chosen, and it's not actually very frightening or capable of being dreaded. It's really just Son Of Sea's latest undertaking – an album of songs and film (otherwise known as music videos). Confused? Read on...
It all began during one of those "what to do next?" moments in July of 2009, when it suddenly seemed that recording a single song and making a video for it seemed the best course of action at that particular point in time and space. But everyone does that! So why not complete the video bit first, and then only once that's done, write the song? And with that concept in place, the process of writing a three-minute short film began, Ebay was scoured for a few choice Super 8 cameras (what else would anyone in their right mind use to make a film other than a 1970s film camera?) and thus began this vaguely trial-and-error project.
Well, not even a single roll of film had been shot before it began to seem like a good idea to make more than just one of these films. Why not make ten of them? An album where every single song has a video to go with it. It could either be listened to or watched like some kind of disjointed movie. So began more writing, writing, writing. Music was forgotten for the moment. Meanwhile, the shooting of the original video was completed and instruments sold to finance the necessary video editing gear. Songwriting once again resumed. By this time 2010 was already in full swing and only two videos had actually been shot. The realisation set in that the Dreaded Green Bag was going to take a long time.
So now, with the aid of a website (sonofsea.com), Things From The Dreaded Green Bag can be a living breathing thing before it has even been completed. So, watch this space, as they say, because periodically Martin will post the latest completed videos from Things From The Dreaded Green Bag. Maybe just the good ones. No... maybe only the mediocre ones so there is still an element of surprise when the time comes to listen/watch the whole … erm, bag.
Oh and before I forget... who is this Son Of Sea character? What can I tell you... he's a young chap called Martin who lives in Brisbane, Australia and makes music out of his home-garage-studio (mostly his own, but he does it for other people too). He has a significant interest in the technology of decades past, such as old cameras – hence the reason the Dreaded Green Bag is being filmed that way. He usually ends up playing most of the instruments on his recordings because he doesn't like to bother other people too much, but sometimes others do generously lend their skills to his projects. He is always very grateful when this happens.
— Some bloke (2010)
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