The Battle of Land and Sea

The Battle of Land and Sea: “I Built The Sea”

from  The Battle of Land and Sea (Notenuf)

nautical noir // Out  Jan. 15

(review/interview, orig. pub. Jan. 2008)                                                   

The Battle of Land and Sea’s eponymous EP (re-released on the Notenuf label with two new tracks added to  the previous, self-released version’s six) consists of  female voice and agile solo guitar (Sara O’Shura and Joshua Canny, respectively) recorded in a dark, empty room, or maybe a dumpster—metallic, echoing, but clear enough. A nomadic, monadic sound, of purposeful wandering and private but palpable purpose, of figures moving behind a curtain, but with no hestitation. Isolation is necessary, mystery too, but so is an audience, a witness, and sometimes a driver.

A “Saltwater Queen” stands over the bed of a boy who’s pining for her; the narrator of “Birdsong”  testifies to being an eleven-year-old girl, pursued by someone who has promised terrible things. This is who she’s talking to: how much of this is a memory, and from how far back? No matter, it’s all present and accounted for—right up to the jump cut, to where “The Beautiful Ones” are gathering, rallying on the shore, about to turn “our backs to the cold wind,” and depart. O’Shura almost sounds like Jewel here, but the slightly querulous, princessy pitch of the chorus turns stern, bitter, determined. Regal enough, with reasons enough (and yeah, beautiful enough)  

Which makes the next track, a cover of Quarterflash’s “Harden My Heart,” seem redundant at first, at least as an idea (and after the quick-change artistry of  the first three songs,  is The Battle getting quagmired already?) But this version is much slower than the original, as the singer almost seems to lose her resolve, as if she’s going to slip into merely sensitive, quivering, sub-Tori Amos mode—then the guitar does some deeper brooding, just enough, and the voice bears its bruises and its tears into the chorus, where they get quietly hardened into armor. But the “armor” is just there to be implied, and felt: there’s no olden-tymes/acid folke “Beautiful Ones” aspect to Quarterflash’s song as Marv Ross wrote it (nor as The Battle Of Land and Sea perform it, sans the original arrangement’s Big 80s glitz). Yet, armor is armor…It’s not a better song than O’Shura’s originals, but the relatively “normal” linearity of it, and especially the struggle in this new performance, somehow add depth or shading to the map, as revealed so far. (All roads lead to Rome, and this one leads a grateful pop-conditioned nation to receive drops of realness from the wise Saltwater Queen, during one heck of a costume change.)

“Six Days” continues the down-to-earth bit by making it literal: the singer smiles up and across time and space, toward a traveller she’s waiting for. But though the pleasantness if this view is new, she’s not too passive, she notes that “I put you on the plane.” Just a little note of satisfaction in that; all’s right with the world, as in “I Built The Sea.” You built or maybe bought the boat, but she (and the guitar) have that easy, rolling authority, which is just flexing its muscles, riding somebody’s vessel high and low. Something vast is in the air, which is not just that of a princess, or a queen, but a goddess, even, eventually, beyond satisfaction (beyond all emotions little humans can have, maybe beyond all emotions, period) But there’s also some friction in there somewhere, some necessary adjustments. True authority doesn’t have to issue reminders—power does, and power is a utility, from a resource, and even if the latter doesn’t get clogged up (ha-ha, who could mess up the sea), the power bill does add up.

(So “Lady” will hold her head high, but carefully, as if it is about to fall off, and she seems to be stumbling alone; then,“You Are A Sailor” and she’s a sweet hitchhiker, suggesting terrible things, and suddenly reminding me that the slide guitar in “I Built The Sea” kept easing toward the Doors’ “Moonlight Drive,” the original of which moves as gracefully as the tides of logic, toward a proposed, underwater “surrender to the waiting worlds”—just a little joke planted, even in the apex of Electric Ladytopia!) Yeah boy, it all adds up. Eight tracks high, and rising.

 The Battle of Land and Sea’s Sarah O’Shura on “I Built The Sea”:

There’s an implied or at least an inferred storyline to this sequence of tracks. Was “I Built The Sea” written with a song cycle in mind?

Definitely. It was the first song that was written for this project. I was quite inspired by the band name and I wanted to write some songs that had a thread, and express my story infused with a bit of folklore.

Did the song seem to emerge all at once, or did you have some ideas in mind, with a certain moment or experience that provided a tipping point? (If the latter, please describe.)

Both actually. The song is about judgmental, short-sighted people that underestimate and begrudge me and my creativity. “I built the sea and not the boat you’re in.”: if I and this other kind of person were sitting in a boat and I told them this is mine, I created this, they would assume I was talking of the boat, when really I’m speaking of something much greater than that: the surrounding sea, I built the sea.

Was the song all written before you started recording?

Yes, I recorded a demo the day I wrote it to capture the vibe and intention of where I wanted to take the song. Usually I record a sketch of a song before anyone else hears it, that’s what I play for them first, not me sitting with a guitar and singing it.

Did words and music arrive together, or if not, which came first?

They did arrive together. I woke up and decided that I was going to write and record a song about what was going on in my life right then, a musical snapshot.  I had a few days off work, my boyfriend was out of town recording his record and I was brimming with creativity. I wrote two songs on the record in those couple of days.

Was it written with any mythological aspects in mind? If so, what?

Not specifically, I just wanted to tell a story within a story…