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The Boy Who Spoke Clouds
The Boy Who Spoke Clouds is the moniker of Adam Casey, former guitarist and singer of Australian sextet, Seascapes of the Interior. The Boy Who Spoke Clouds began as a musical departure point from Seascapes of the Interior, amalgamating Adam’s love of gypsy and indigenous music and the polyrhythmic approach of composers such as Steve Reich and Gyorgi Ligeti with his bittersweet shamanic-folk based compositions. The combination is unexpected, yet somehow, these disparate sounds unite into a glorious whole, the songs, at times, bursting with joyous yelps and flamenco style hand clapping and other times, settling into more introspective and sparse territory.

The Boy Who Spoke Clouds debut album was recorded in 2004 through 2005 at a beach house over a four month period without the potential for release in mind. All the songs were recorded, out of necessity, via the microphone of a Sony handycam video Hi8 into a cheap sound card. Everything from flamenco handclaps, percussive chanting, foot stomping and chopsticks hitting guitars were incorporated, sometimes in the hope of mimicking a sound Adam had no means of producing conventionally, and other times, attempting the absurd with the hope of dispelling self-conscious methods of music production and simultaneously to push himself out of his regular habits and musical clichés. "One of my biggest fears as an artist is to repeat myself, to fall back on my comforts. These recordings began as explorations outside of my usual musical vernacular. They very quickly became something intensely personal for me."

On this album, Adam sings predominantly of death, transitions, and one’s engagement with the mystery before the answer or question arise. "My fascination with things in-between, the shadows between the branches, have crept into these songs. The songs are like little invocations, prayers to not knowing."

The Boy Who Spoke Clouds debut album will be released in early 2009 on Sun Sea Sky Productions. The debut album will soon be followed by"The Seal Woman Suite", a group of songs written specifically for and accompanied by a storybook with paintings, and "Weight of Experience", the first album that sees The Boy Who Spoke Clouds as a band, also scheduled to be released later in 2009.
Links
Releases
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Video
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Improvisation In The Krause Hause
 
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Goodbye
 
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Adam Playing Darbukka
 
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Happening
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The Gold Won't Fade
 
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Adam And Shani Working On "Belonging"
 
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Ebow/Organ Improvisation
 
Reviews
Psychedelicfolk.com  

This is the project of Adam Casey, formerly singer of a group called Seascapes of the Interior. He plays guitar, banjo, programs, sings and uses found sounds. It features steady member Jenny Jo Oakley who arranges with piano, melodica and clarinet, vocals. The illustrations are also hers, which most probably directly inspires Adam Casey. Justin Rhodes played drums on the recordings, and Alex played violin. Currently a new percussionist and cellist is being looked for. I received two recorded demos which are a full CD and a 5-track EP which are ready for release.

The full album was recorded at home with a sony handycam used as a microphone to record directly on PC, and was compiled and composed during a 9-month period of recording. Strangely enough this approach gave a very rich, warm and well finished, sophisticated sound. This is the kind of result which fits well with the attractively arranged styles of people like Vitaminsforyou, Uphill Racer, Brendon Anderegg, but also more popular releases from perhaps Sufjan Stevens, but also Tunng and other comparable projects. There's often of a somewhat guitaristic rhythmical continuation, a swollen environmental sound space continuum, enriched by lots of things happening, with sounds and arrangements that almost give the effect of a socializing of the sound so that it gets rid of any chance of a lonely feeling. Within its spatial fullness of sounds, these arrangements are kept clear and are never saturating the content. Other tracks are more clearly spinning and improvised guitar-based (loop-like acoustic with electric, and sometimes a droning bass or with bits of keyboards), but there are also just a few chamber-like arranged instrumental passages, which I assume are arranged by the violinist.

The 'Seal Woman Suite' is an EP initially recorded for a dance production. Once the production fell through Adam Casey was left with music that was intended to fit with a narrative, but no narrative to go with the music. Because he has a PhD in creative writing himself, he decided to rewrite the myth that the dance was originally concerned with. Each piece of music within the suite (instrumentals based upon acoustic guitars enriched with more sound composition, of water, wind chimes, and other often minimalist harp-like arrangements) reflects the story, and the story was to fit with the music fragments. This story was based on an ancient Scandinavian myth usually referred to as "the seal woman", as opposed to offering a moral lesson. The new musical interpretation is supposed to explore different characters that reflect some experiences from the story. The texts of these reflections are not spoken but can be read with the music. The music evolves a bit like a background happening with a story, and is rather filmic. The vocals on the third track give it something of a personal ritual event. The last instrumental sound as if the droning chords are drowning away the memories in the story.