The air is thick on Shearwater’s new album The Golden Archipelago. It’s the kind of atmosphere that resonates, as if a magnetic presence is matching the vocal gusto, and shimmering instrumentals of the band itself—and that’s saying something. So what is this underlying aura?
For singer-songwriter Jonathan Meiburg it’s the spiritual energy he uncovered while visiting the remote islands of Tierra del Fuego of Argentina, and the Marshall islands near Indonesia. The natives there are so deeply in tune with the world around them that it seems as though nature speaks to them in enchanting and mysterious ways.
The Golden Archipelago tries to capture that same mystique by following the way the organic cycle of life parallels the patterns of nature: the waves of the ocean mimic breathing; the sun’s brazen eye swelters, then slowly ceases; and the earth cries out for the life giving element of rainwater. You can even hear the steady heartbeat of a drum pulsating in the background on “Hidden Lakes”.
