Minotaur Shock 'Maritime' album

Minotaur Shock (AKA David Edwards) will release Maritime, an album beautiful enough to launch a thousand ships, on August 9th 2005. This is his second album proper (if you don’t include an interim compilation of EP tracks and rarities) and is also his first for his new label, 4AD.

His first album, Chiff-Chaffs And Willow Warblers, was on the receiving end of much critical acclaim when released in late-2001, which allowed David to fully establish himself as something of an electronic maverick and gave him the chance he needed to take his music out of the bedroom and be able to concentrate on making it for a full-time living. Further endeavours have seen him become an in-demand remixer (Badly Drawn Boy, Super Furry Animals and, most recently, Bloc Party no less) and getting his other band, the brilliant Bronze Age Fox, kick-started and become known beyond the city limits of Bristol.

Maritime features recent single Vigo Bay as well as ten other pearls. Here’s David to tell you more…

“I spend a lot of time reading about the sea. Nothing clever, it’s just that I’m a sucker for the romantic notion of the coast - smugglers, mists and pirates and that. You can often find me with a DuMaurier tucked under my arm like some old lady trying to manage her tartan shopping trolley and her decrepit Jack Russell.

Thing is, I also have a fondness for FM rock. I’m no expert, don’t get me wrong, I just love the worlds described in the songs of Steely Dan and the chrome-plated dreams that The Cars and Hall & Oates bring to mind.
These two elements make up both sides of the Maritime coin. For some reason, both disparate romantic ideals have been swimming about in me for a while now, and Maritime is the result of their dirty union.

I guess it doesn’t sound much like those bands mentioned, or evoke the sea in a traditional shanty kind of manner. But there is a common theme throughout the album, where I was trying to juxtapose both sides of the coin. Say 18th century pirates washed up on South Beach, Miami in 1982. Or what if there was an old-style mutiny on a shiny ocean liner like the one in that fantastic episode of Columbo.

Problem is, I guess it’s just me that realises that. Ah well, make of it what you will.

I had a lot of fun making it, that’s for sure. And I’m aware that a lot of it treads a very fine line. But I wanted to make the music more honest and more of a reflection of me than before – I spent a lot of time listening to the music I grew up with rather than trying to discover the newest noises in the world. Hence if you look hard enough you’ll find nods to The Wedding Present, Prefab Sprout, Can, The Art of Noise, The Eagles, Mr Fingers, Cocteau Twins, Steely Dan, Giorgio Moroder and the other bits and bobs that soundtracked me during my formative years.”

Maritime will be released on August 9th via 4AD/The Beggars Group.

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Tracklisting

Minotaur Shock - Maritime