Man of Aran

Description

Rough Trade Records are pleased to announce the reissue of Sea Power’s ‘Man of Aran’ score on 25th August 2023, which will see the album released on vinyl for the first time. In 2009 the band, then known as British Sea Power, were commissioned by the Edinburgh Film Festival to create their own soundtrack for the 1934 quasi-documentary, which they premiered by playing along live during a screening at the event. A studio version of the album followed in May the same year, while more screening/performances took place at the BFI in London and at cinemas in Brighton and Sheffield, while events were also staged on a series of islands, including Jersey, the Hebrides and a Norwegian islet in the Arctic Circle. Charting the activities of fisherman based on a remote outcrop in mouth of Galway Bay in western Ireland, Robert J Flaherty’ ‘Man of Aran’ captured a disappearing way of life as Aran’s inhabitants battled daily against the elements to survive, something that chimed deeply with Sea Power’s own curiosity for the past and their urgent, environmentally-driven concerns for the future. The resulting, mainly instrumental score, proved to be a true artistic collaboration that stretched across the decades, earning the group widespread acclaim upon its release, both for the music’s simpatico relationship with the original film and as a stand alone work in its own right.

Tracklisting

Disc 1
1. Man of Aran – Sea Power
2. The South Sound – Sea Power
3. Come Wander With Me – Sea Power
4. Tiger King – Sea Power
5. The Currach – Sea Power
6. Boy Vertiginous – Sea Power
Disc 2
1. Spearing the Sunfish – Sea Power
2. Conneely of the West – Sea Power
3. The North Sound – Sea Power
4. Woman of Aran – Sea Power
5. It Comes Back Again – Sea Power
6. No Man Is an Archipelago – Sea Power