- I'm not sure quite how they're doing it—only pressing ten records? big in an unlikely land with a generous vinyl budget?—but, remarkably, with next to no online presence and a twitter following of fifty-three (at the time of this writing), Seahawks' records are always out of stock. Despite this apparently outstanding sales record, you've probably never heard of them, though if your musical wanderlust generally leads to the Balearics, you probably should.
Quiet Village is an obvious comparison, but the Seahawks yacht is equipped with proggier sails and richer stocks of melody, which is why it's a slight shame that "Is This It?" feels a bit static. It reaches for the melancholic and gets there with an understated vocal, muffled guitar and plenty of fluttering glissandos, but its ambience lacks the enjoyably breezy chord progressions ergo romantic melodrama of their other work, of which "Oh Baby" is a great example. It's all so wonderfully easygoing: the unhurried semi-quaver hats, bass played with a raised eyebrow and cocked wink, a guitar melody to soundtrack old holiday slideshows. The track, and seemingly the whole Seahawks ethos, is a tonic for the gruff.
Tracklist A Is This It?
B Oh Baby