Musically, Seabat is inspired by early electronic music pioneers, new age sounds of the 80's as well as the burgening crop of contemporary artists using analog and digital synthesizers to create visionary space age drone and noise. Seabat is a soundtrack to cyber space, fantastic visions, underwater travel and feelings of transcendence from daily life into a greater reality.
The Seabat is a mythical creature (in sailor culture, seasoned crew members would tell a new recruit that a 'seabat' is trapped under a crate, and then when they bent down to look wack them on the head as an initiation ritual), as well as the name of a technologically advanced sonar system which creates colorful three dimensional renderings of the canyons and terrain at the bottom of oceans. The music of Seabat is a combination of both of these uses, a fantasy of technological bliss in a holographic world of computers and mythical beings.
Humanity has become increasingly intertwined with it's technology to a point where virtual identity can often overtake the physical. We exist as kind of cyborgs, our electronic extensions (facebook, email, cell phones, electronic media, ect.) quickly gaining power over our identities and our day to day activities. Past futures optimistically promised a technological utopia, taking the form of virtual realities, holograms, and cyberspaces. In the year 2010, this vision is here, the future is now, it is just not quite what we thought it would be.
What used to be science fiction stories are now reality, yet much of the aesthetics of the early days of cyberspace dreams are gone. Seabat acknowledges this technological reality, yet yearns for one aesthetically similar to that of early computer generated graphics, a world of pixels and colors and sweeping points of view, punctuated by transcendent electronic synthesizer music.
Understanding Holography was recorded in two quick days in Brooklyn, when I was first learning about holography. Holography is a technology involving shining a laser light on a three dimensional object and capturing the reflected light waves on a photographic plate, which also has a 'reference beam' shining on it from a slightly different angle, creating interference patterns. The resulting image is three dimensional. I'm currently gathering a tool kit to create my own set of holograms (to be exhibited at Skylab Gallery), as well as researching for an extended article (to be published through the Ohio State University) examining the Hologram's role as an art medium, it's value over time, and possible futures.
Understanding Holography out today. Paypal $7 USD + $1 shipping to johnalsobennett@yahoo.com for a hand numbered / painted limited edition CDR, or download it here - http://seabat.bandcamp.com/. Unholy Rhythms reviewed the album here.
