Band Of The Week #137 - I See Rivers
This week’s Band of the Week is the mystical I See Rivers - who have just released their new album ‘Deep & Rolling Green’. This release takes the listener on an adventure of sixteen songs that sail you from indie to folk to dream-pop all in journey. They took a moment to talk to us in more depth about the release.
Hello I SEE RIVERS. How are you? The album is out there now, how does it feel to have it out there? Especially during a strange time for music.
Hello! We’re currently in Gøril’s cabin which is located in the woods up north in Norway, and at the moment we’re just really enjoying hanging out as we haven’t seen each other for 8 months (the longest we’ve ever gone without seeing each other)! Although we did debate postponing the album release because of the pandemic, we are so happy that we decided to go through with releasing the album now. We’ve both felt and seen the importance of art and culture and the monumental role it has in people’s lives in dire times such as now, and it’s been lovely to see that so many of our peers in Norway has received help and funding from the government to survive in this pandemic. On the other side it breaks our heart to see that our friends, peers and teammates in the UK haven’t received the same treatment. Let the music play!
It is called ‘Deep & Rolling Green’ - does this have a certain meaning? What was the influence behind it?
A very big part of the album was written and recorded in Wales while all three of us were living there and we wanted to name the album something that commemorated the impact that time had on us.
There are sixteen tracks on this album, which for a release could be considered quite long. How did you decide which tracks made it on the album?
It is quite a lot of tracks, but a few of them are skits or little breathers in between the other tracks. We wrote A LOT of songs for this album and after a couple of weeks of pre-production where we gave many of them a chance to make it on the album, we spend almost two full days just deciding what we wanted to say with the album and which songs best represented this while still going well together. Some of the skits on the album are from songs who just didn’t make it on, but where we thought the sentiment or feel of the track still resonated with the other songs.
Where was the album recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from this process you are happy to share with us?
The album was recorded in our bedrooms and living rooms in Pembrokeshire, Oslo, Bodø and Jostedalen, in the absolute stunner of a studio StudiOwz, in our producer Toby Couling’s living room as well as in two studios in London. We put a lot of work into the production ourselves before we met up with Toby and the rest of the team in the actual studio, and as such we kept a lot of the original recordings from the demo versions in the finished recordings. The recording process was finished in Gøril’s cabin back in December 2019 when the three of us and Toby spent a week in snow and Polar Night while putting down the final touches on the album. One of the nights we went to the pub for a pint and Toby ended up wooing the entire town with his karaoke skills.
The album takes us on quite the emotional adventure, with its feel-good energy on tracks like ‘Grow and Go’ and ‘Helios’ but you weren’t scared to take it in the other direction and show us some of your darker emotions. What are the key themes and influences on this album?
In the past, we’ve normally written all the songs together, but for this album we decided to write separately from each other. Because of this, the songs and subject matter are a bit more personal than in the past, but we were surprised to see that almost all of the songs had similar themes although we never actually discussed it. As a whole, the album represents our years in Wales as well as it reflects our time together from the inception of the band. Nature, mythology, love and loss are common themes throughout the album.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the album? If so which one and why?
It’s not necessarily our favorite lyric, but the line “Even when you swing at me, the deep and rolling green is on our side” from the title track ‘Deep & Rolling Green’ is quite special to us as it sums up both the importance of our time in Wales both and this album as a whole.
Now the album is out there, what next for I See Rivers?
In more normal times, we would probably be writing this in the back of our car while on tour promoting the album, but sadly this isn’t the case at the moment. We’re in uncertain and quite scary times, but we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to play and connect with everyone soon! In the meantime we’ll continue to write new music, make time to be in nature and see our loved one, as well as just enjoy the release of our debut album!