Seahawks are John Tye and Pete Fowler (of album cover designing fame) who have been mixing their magic since 2009. According to their blog, Ocean Trippin’, Seahawks embody the sound of “psychedelic yacht rock, deck shoegaze, hazy beach pop vibrations and marina drone”. As if the album cover wasn’t enough of a clue.
Their debut album is just as confusing as this description would suggest, with a combination of reverberations, echoes, muted synth samples and hazy filters. But just before you go ahead and find this album guilty of being merely suited to the tastes of the boat party frequenting, Moet chugging, red trouser wearing yachting-type, consider the collaborations with Al Doyle and Rob Smoughton of Hot Chip fame, and Tom Furse from the Horrors.
This dazzling collaboration sets the scene for a sonorous landscape like none other, be it the dreamy vocal atmospheres of ‘Drifting’ or ‘Rainbow Sun’, ‘Paradise Freaks’ or ‘Electric Waterfall’s combination of natural sounds with fleeting synth interplay, or the deceptive simplicity of ‘Islands’ and the close of the album. Relative monotony might force this record to be treated as a background one, but individual tracks ensure that Paradise Freaks is definitely one for the summer sun.
