Genre: Field Recording, Ambient Music
Mp3 Album Available on the Best Internet Retailers
Audio Recordings: Domenico Sciajno in Sicily
Sound Design (Assemblage, processing and editing): Mark O’Leary
Mixing: Donncha Moynihan Hub Studios, Cork
Seascapes Vol. 1
Sicily is pregnant with history and culture, in fact Goethe spent several months in Siciliy in 1787 and pointedly remarked ”To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything”.
Archimedes was a native son as was Allesando Scarlatti to Giorgio De Chirico who has been alluded to as being the father of Surrealist art and his legacy can be encountered to this day in popular culture on Playstation 2, also a poet, Et quid amabo nisi quod aenigma est? (What shall I love if not the enigma).
Castles, archeological sites, vineyards, tapestries, marionettes, ceramics and poignant landscapes not withstanding the majestic Palermo.
In popular culture we encounter La Cosa Nostra, The incredible town Corleone and of course Don Corleone from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
But we should remember that Sicily is an Island surrounded by an en captivating Seascape and this is the muse and catalyst for Mark O’Leary’s project with Domenico Sciajno.
The abstract seascapes feature on the albums artwork complement the abstractions of marine audio.
Sciajno spent time recording various sounds of the sea in Sicily and these were received by Mark O’Leary who proceeded to assemble them and produce them in Hub studio Cork with engineer Donncha Moynihan.
A succinct definition would be Abstract Ambient Seascapes for it is an apotheosis of the genre.
Sonically the sea does capture ones imagination (the aesthetic will be continued in vol II) , in a retrograde fashion one can conceive of Jules Vernes “20,000 leagues under the sea” or the embryonic groundbreaking achievement of Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh’s trip to the Mariana trench in 1960 in their Batyscaphe ”Trieste” what sounds they must have encountered, in more recent times James Cameron’s recent trip to the Mariana trench which he managed to film also captures the imagination.
The sea has a calming, meditative and contemplative effect, visually and sonically, it stirs the soul.
From the very tiniest of sounds like droplets of water to masses of waves to tidal washes and surges, the sea does contain all of the desired orchestral nuances as well as great visual beauty.
Albeit, here it is abstracted, it is ambient, fermented and distilled, conjuring this music with scenes brimming with history and culture, disparate yes, for the history of Sicily is complicated but influenced by elegance and acme craftsmanship that Sicily and the Sicilians have espoused consistently.
Stanza
When I look o’er the land and out to the sea, ponderous introspection’s manifest with glee
Upon this perch I soothe under sky and look at the seascape dawn coming nigh
Frederick the II, Teutonic Knights, conquering Moors and Ionian lights
Bastions, Ceramics and Marionettes, vibrant with culture, not that one forgets
As I peruse upon an Albatross, I stand firm my Standard a Sicilian Cross.