(05.11.07) THE ARTIFICIAL SEA is the duo of Kevin C. Smith (music) and Alina Simone (vocals). Their latest release, City Island (2006, Travelling Music), is a sexy collection of post-modern torch songs that has evoked comparisons to trip-hop and electronic dance luminaries such asPortishead, Everything But the Girl, and Massive Attack.
“I think there are definitely elements of those groups in our music,” Alina told me. “But Kevin’s compositions have a more lo-fi, organic feel to them – something closer to CocoRosie.” And Kevin said that although he likes those bands he “didn’t consciously set out to sound like them. They are definitely influences but there are many, many others as well.”
The two met during what Kevin describes as a “disastrous Theremin lesson” he gave Alina. Although she may not have learned a great deal about the Theremin that day, a relationship grew out of the brief first encounter. “I remember coming home and putting a CD Kevin made me into the stereo and thinking I can do something with this.” That track later became the AS song “Tunnel Vision.”
When I asked Alina to describe how the two of them went about making City Island, she quipped “it’s kind of like anonymous gay sex at a highway rest stop. Kevin would often just send me a CD and I would listen and compose my parts. He would never hear my ideas until we were in the recording studio. He operates in complete secrecy but is also full of great surprises. He just goes away and finds the perfect cellist/saxophonist/drummer for a track and arranges everything down to the smallest detail.”
Although they have no immediate plans for a tour as AS, Alina will be playing dates throughout the country to support her debut solo album. She is also preparing to record a covers album of Russian punk/folk-singer, Yanka Dyagileva, supported by an emerging artists’ grant she recently received from the Durham Arts Council. Kevin is working on new tracks and hopes to get a band together sometime in the near future to back AS in live shows.
Both are self-taught musicians, although Kevin did concede that he once “took a few lessons on bass from a guy who looked like he was in the Doobie Brothers” and says he has “learned a little from a lot of different people, directly and indirectly.” Cartoons and video games from the late 70’s and early 80’s greatly influenced his direction in composition. “I still have those sounds stuck in my head,” Kevin told me, “and I’m just now figuring out how to make them myself.” Although they do not dominate City Island, those influences can certainly be heard in the erratic blips and pings that underpin many of the mixes. He says he likes to “capture lots of different sounds… then build up the songs layer by layer and tear them down layer by layer too, repeating this as necessary.”
Alina was “totally obsessed” with Sinead O’Connor growing up. “She taught me how important it was to sing with complete abandon and not to be musically timid; composure, self-restraint and good technique are important, but nothing can replace passionate performance.” Her own fervent performances on many of the tracks reflect this philosophy, and the strength and emotion they embody is a great boon to City Island throughout.
Indeed, the most compelling aspect of City Island is the evident passion of both parties. In a phrase more often used in sports jargon, after listening to this recording one senses they “left everything on the field,” or recording studio as the case may be. Although to some they may seem derivative at times, the music and vocal renderings promise good things to come from both of these artists individually and in future Artificial Sea releases.
City Island is out now on Travelling Music. [Purchase]
Kevin, a native of Pittsburgh, now lives in Brooklyn. Born in Kharkov, in the Ukraine, Alina makes her home in Carrboro, NC but spends a great deal of time in New York recording or performing. Due to geographic constraints, parts of this interview were done in person with Kevin at a diner on Flatbush Ave. and others were cobbled together from e-mail correspondence with both.
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The Artificial Sea Record Recommendations ::
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Alina ::
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