Sarah’s old band…
The official press release
THE SEA NYMPHS: ON THE DRY LAND, CD AND VINYL ALPHCD032 / ALPHLP032
RELEASED FRIDAY 4TH NOVEMBER, 2016
Comprising of core members, Tim Smith, Sarah Smith ( No w Sarah Jones) and William D Drake, The Sea Nymphs were the elegiac and wondrous foil to their main band Cardiacs’ terrifying bombast. Otherworldly, dream-like and deliriously psychedelic, and dispensing with bludgeoning guitars and drums, The Sea Nymphs swam deep in the reedy waters of the unconscious. Their 1992 self-titled debut set sail where The Incredible String Band, at their most ambitious, and Ralph Vaughn Williams, at his most heavenly, left off.
Haunting, eerie and exploding with unusual colours, the beautiful compositions of preternaturally gifted Smith and Drake made this album indispensable, while charming many who found Cardiacs ‘a bit much’.
The second Sea Nymphs album, On The Dry Land, a fairly open secret among the legion of loyal fans, was largely completed at the same time as the debut and slated for release shortly afterwards but, for unforeseen reasons, never saw the light of day. Apart from three new songs played for a 1998 Peel session, the contents of this album remain largely unheard.
Following Tim Smith’s accident in 2008 and subsequent health issues ever since, no new material has been released since 2007. Smith, however, was able to return to his studio in 2015 to supervise the additional recording and painstaking process necessary to complete this lost masterpiece.
Every bit as audacious, original and mystifying as the debut, On The Dry Land is a testament to the meeting of minds of composers Smith and Drake. The ethereal presence of Sarah Smith seems to wrap everything in a feather-like weightlessness. The end result is nothing short of sublime.
Exclusively available from The Consultant’s Memorabilia Collection buy CD here or buy Vinyl here
Oh, and the first album “The Sea Nymphs”on vinyl for the first time. buy CD here or buy Vinyl here