Although our state is best known for our vibrant and ever-expanding indie rock scene, there’s plenty of gems that are hidden throughout the state that display the sheer depth of our musical talent. Acts like Songs of Water are the perfect display of this scene’s breadth, they’re an immensely talented group of musicians with a wide array of influences that funnel out to produce an all-encompassing brand of world-inspired folk music. It’s hard to peg down this band’s genre, as Stephen Roach proclaims the band has heard everything from “post-traditional folk” to cinematic world music.
Whatever you want to call it, it’s damn good. Last week I was joined by several members of this massive seven-person crew to chat a bit about how so many voices can come together to create such a rich and seamless sound. Roach comments on how the band pulls their influences from a variety of regions, one minute you’ll hear traditional West African rhythms bleeding through and on the next track you’ll hear some Russian-inspired folk musings.
Together the band of multi-instrumentalists play on a huge array of instruments, their latest full length The Sea Has Spoken featured over thirty instruments. During our conversation I spoke with the band about just how one goes about learning such a wide variety of instruments, what some of the most unique and region-specific instruments are that they’ve found, and how they go about morphing these songs from studio works to live performances.
Check out our full conversation to find out about the intricacies that go into working with such a large band and the work that’s gone into their forthcoming full length album.