Given that what seems to be depicted in the artwork is a post-climate-apocalypse empty landscape unsuitable to human life, I’m going to guess the children’s book that accompanies We Lost the Sea‘s Triumph & Disaster ain’t exactly Green Eggs & Ham when it comes to playtime reading. Not like Pete the Cat is going to come jumping out of the burned out general store and be like, “Who wants to go on a bug safari?” As it happens, I do a fair bit of reading books for little kids these days, from Dr. Seuss and Gossie & Gertie to Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy and from A is for Activist to I Love You Because You’re You. I don’t have one about the end of the world, but, you know, my kid’s two now, so I’m kind of starting to feel like maybe it’s time I tell him just how screwed over he’s been by every generation before his own, including mine. Sorry about that, duder.

Not sorry enough to stop burning oil, but, you know, sorry in theory.

Anyhoozle, guitarist Matt Harvey‘s art for the We Lost the Sea album and the accompanying story is downright beautiful. I haven’t seen the real-deal, hold-it-in-your-hands finished product, but even the digital images that accompany give further richness to the melodic and wistful atmospheres they conjure with sound. Their style is so much suited to creating a feeling of longing for something lost, and it’s deeply emotive, so yeah, a mother and son spending their last day on earth together feels like fair enough territory for the band to cover, mourning for a lost future that their characters — or the rest of us, because let’s be honest: we’re all boned — will never know. Seems all the more poignant as Australia, like California, burns with wildfires intensified due to climate change and the country’s conservative wing says it’s cool because the people who died voted left.

Somewhere in the vast universe of possibility, Slim Pickens rides a bomb and whips his hat around yelling, “Wahoo!” en route to mutually-assured destruction.

Enjoy the video:

We Lost the Sea, ‘The Art of Triumph and Disaster’

Sydney cinematic instrumental band We Lost The Sea have just released their long-awaited new album Triumph & Disaster on October 4 via Bird’s Robe Records (Australia) and October 25 via Translation Loss (US), Holy Roar (UK) and Dunk!Records (EU). The fourth album in their collection, Triumph & Disaster, is a post-apocalyptic view on the collapse of the world told like a children’s story and illustrated through the eyes of a mother and her son as they spend one last day on Earth. The music is the narrative for the destruction and tragedy. The words tell the story of love, loss and letting go.

In a new documentary the band breaks down their most recent album artwork and the children’s book that arrived alongside it, telling these themes of a post-apocalyptic world and climate ignorance through means other than the music they make.

Also, for an in-depth look at the complete artworks from the album check out the folio page on Behance: https://www.behance.net/gallery/86859775/We-Lost-The-Sea-Triumph-Disaster-Complete-Artworks

Artwork concept, illustration, design and layout by Matt Harvey
Story by Matt Harvey and Mark Owen
Story edited by Robert Dean

We Lost The Sea is:
Matt Harvey – Guitars
Mark Owen – Guitars
Carl Whitbread – Guitars
Kieran Elliott – Bass
Mathew Kelly – Piano and Synths
Nathaniel D’Ugo – Drums

We Lost the Sea, Triumph & Disaster (2019)

We Lost the Sea on Thee Facebooks

We Lost the Sea on Bandcamp

Translation Loss store

Translation Loss on Thee Facebooks

Tags: Australia, Sydney, Translation Loss Records, Triumph and Disaster, We Lost the Sea, We Lost the Sea Triumph and Disaster

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 19th, 2019 at 5:20 am and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.