Seims • Four [LP]

Four by Seims on 180g colored vinyl and comes in three variants: baby pink, teal and baby pink w/teal splatter. Limited to 100 copies in our store.

US fans keep an eye on A Thousand Arms' webshop and UK fans please visit Church Road Records!

Released Oct. 22nd, 2021.

Info

dunk!records is excited to bring you FOUR, the aptly-titled fourth album from the Sydney, Australia masters of inventive, idiosyncratic prog-rock, SEIMS. Among numerous intriguing distinctions that set them apart from the pack, SEIMS is a pitch-perfect convergence of singular vision and collective brilliance. The compositions originate from the fusion of multi-instrumentalist Simeon Bartholomew’s enigmatic arrangements and percussionist Chris Allison’s energetic accompaniment, but FOUR wouldn’t be the astonishingly unique final product it is without its diverse cast of guest performers. Uniting Bartholomew’s consistently unpredictable writing with violin, viola, cello, harp, flugelhorn, trumpet, and other accents brings beauty to the madness and transforms the record from persistently forceful math-prog into something truly multi-dimensional and endlessly rewarding on ensuing revisitations. 

Within the first seven minutes of the album, the listener discovers a dynamic landscape of sounds and ideas ranging from the lush, dramatic strings and piano of opener “The Mountain’s Lullaby,” to the tension between skittering drums and thoughtfully restrained instrumentation on “The Pursuit of Intermediate Happiness,” to the all-out fantasy-prog frenzy of “Showdown Without A Victim.” The constantly shifting tone of this opening trio is more than enough to leave one tantalizingly off-balance, and quickly establishes that this is a record with no boundaries. The tangible sense that absolutely anything could be waiting around the next corner gives FOUR an enthralling quality that expands the sensibilities of its audience just by virtue of its untold possibilities. As the record burns breathlessly on, listeners will find soaring brass solos, hypnotic synth progressions, swirling psychedelia anchored by furious percussive flourishes, and even the occasional vocal passage or nasty guitar riff to periodically tether it to a traditional rock sound that it is otherwise steadily transcending.

Rarely does one find an album this abstract and artistically inclined yet simultaneously focused and listenable, and that’s where FOUR’s magic lies. It’s so precisely composed and confidently executed that it can become easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s rarely playing by any rules. Listeners eager for something distinctive and exhilarating will no doubt appreciate the many ways SEIMS flawlessly balance both the explosive and the pensive, and even more essentially how they exercise an emphatic control over everything in between. No matter how far they seek to push the conventions of prog rock, the results are both breathtakingly original and remarkably coherent.

– Young Epoch

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