BLACK ATLANTIC | INTERVIEW + TRACK REVIEW
Black Atlantic began, in part, as a way of getting the noise out.
When we first spoke, its creator described feeling lighter than he had in years. Music was therapeutic, the project wasn't supposed to end, and the things rattling around inside his head could be pulled out, turned into lyrics and given somewhere else to live. Some time later, the noise hasn't disappeared. But perhaps the distance between the noise has changed.
Black Atlantic has continued growing, passing 10,000 streams this year and accumulating an audience entirely organically. More importantly, its creator now has something many people spend their lives trying to recover: time. Time to write, reconsider, record six different versions of the same idea, throw them away, return to them and occasionally decide that what satisfies him matters more than what might perform better commercially. That last part is becoming increasingly important.
There is now a fascinating tension inside Black Atlantic between music as a deeply personal necessity and music as something other people have begun choosing to listen to. He doesn't want to selfishly disregard the audience, but neither does he want their expectations determining where the project is allowed to go. Some days those instincts coexist. Other days they fight.
The upcoming Dear Past seems to sit directly inside that conflict. More experimental than previous material, it became an opportunity to push the vocals harder, explore different sounds and ultimately choose the version he wanted rather than the one he thought might be more commercially successful. It might not represent a permanent change of direction, but it suggests Black Atlantic is becoming increasingly comfortable wandering away from its own boundaries. Lyrically, however, certain ghosts remain.
Regret. Isolation. The desire to be saved. Sirens going off somewhere inside the mind. But those darker ideas are increasingly interrupted by flashes of something else. Starry Eyes looks toward a relationship that has endured pain and drama and still somehow finds two people standing beside one another. Elsewhere, Black imagines a world drained of colour, only to arrive at the idea that music itself might prevent that darkness from ever completely taking over.
Maybe that's where Black Atlantic currently lives: somewhere between black and colour, noise and peace, independence and audience, control and experimentation. The darkness hasn't vanished. He's simply getting better at finding the colours in the seams between it.
TRACK REVIEW - Flannel in the Grey Snow
Flannel in the Grey Snow comes charging out of the gates.
There’s an immediate forward momentum to it, but what makes the track work is how subtly that energy keeps rising. It doesn't sprint towards the payoff. Instead, it climbs almost imperceptibly, layer by layer, until somewhere along the way you've found yourself completely swallowed by this blissful wall of rock music.
The vocals are a particular highlight. Every time the voice slips upwards into falsetto, it provides this beautiful flash of light against the weight underneath. It’s one of those tiny melodic choices that simply tickles the brain in exactly the right place, giving the track another dimension without interrupting its momentum. And beneath everything is that bass.
It chugs relentlessly through the track, becoming almost the engine of the whole thing. There's something wonderfully physical about it. You can feel the song pushing forward even when everything surrounding it begins to expand. Then the chorus arrives. And it absolutely smashes you in the face.
More importantly, it has earned the right to. Everything before it has been gradually tightening the spring, so when the track finally opens up, the release feels enormous rather than forced. That contrast between the driving verses, those flashes of falsetto and the sheer impact of the chorus turns Flannel in the Grey Snow from a solid rock track into a proper anthem.
Sometimes a song doesn't need to politely invite you in.
Sometimes it needs to build momentum, kick the door off its hinges and make the chorus feel inevitable. Flannel in the Grey Snow does exactly that.
Last time we spoke you said you'd been "feeling the lightest you'd felt in years" since starting Black Atlantic. Has that stayed with you, or has getting deeper into the project surfaced new noise you didn't know was still there?
No doubt a lot of noise is still there, but the creative outlet BA provides is still very much therapeutic. It’s an addiction. Albeit a healthy one.
You wrote before that "Black Atlantic for me should never end." Since then you've kept releasing. What's stayed the same about why you make it, and what has quietly shifted?
So time is an important commodity…..a lot of people have very little of it or work life balance. I have the time to focus on me now so call me lucky. BA keeps evolving and more songs are on track to come out.
You described the process last time as being like an addiction, something you work at every day. What does a good day of work on Black Atlantic actually look like now, and has the process become more structured or is it still catch-it-when-it-comes?
To be honest there are several tracks where I have several takes. Certain takes "blow hot and cold". It’s a grueling process at times to balance what I want to hear and maybe what my listeners expect. That’s the juxtaposition, figuring out what works for both of us. I don’t want to be completely selfish with my music.
You said listeners are nice but the project is fundamentally for you. Has the audience growing in the time since tested that? Do you notice yourself thinking about them at all when you write, or does it still start entirely from your own head?
Look my audience is small with over 10,000+ streams this year, but it’s really all organic and I call it a success. A little better each week, a bit more confidence to keep releasing new material but there is a part of me that just wants what I want if I’m being completely transparent.
Last time you talked about how The Cure shaped generations and how you're hoping Robert Smith keeps at it. What's an artist working right now who's giving you something that feels like it might land the same way in twenty years?
Funny you should ask I just listened to an interview with Mike D……the Beastie Boys had a very democratic relationship and at times 1/3rd, 1/3rd and a 1/3rd fought like cats and dogs. This time around Mike D after a long hiatus is back at making music since the death of Adam Yauch, but it’s on his terms. Yes, he is super excited to be playing and writing with his sons and friends but he is calling the shots and the new album releases thus far are way cool coming from the music icon.
Your writing lives inside juxtapositions, light and dark, wanting to be seen and being invisible. What tension are you sitting inside right now that's shaping the newer material?
Ouch…..that is the part that hurts when you are writing because what you are feeling is what I am writing about. Themes of regret, isolation, needing saving, sirens going off in my head, and then every now and again there is something good happening and I try to tell a short story like the track “Starry Eyes”, which really is about the relationship with my queen. It’s a reminder that a fair amount has happened but we keep finding ourselves together and there is something to be said for that despite pain, drama etc.
What's the newest track or piece you've written that surprised you, and what did it teach you about where Black Atlantic might be heading next?
There is a new track coming out this week called “Dear Past”. It’s got some of the recurring themes in the writing but it's a bit more experimental with the sound,…... I’m testing myself a bit. It is not “way out there”, but it was a fun track to work on and at the end I had about 6 takes and I worked on the vocals a bit harder and when it was done I went with what I wanted not what might be more commercially successfully. I think for awhile my experiementation may be more prevalent in future tracks. Not committing to it, but it's leaning that way.
You mentioned you pick "noisy things" from your life and spit them out as lyrics first. Are the noisy things still the same ones, or has this project quietened some of them enough that new ones are starting to speak louder?
Good question…….since we last spoke the noise seems tempered but then at times I regress. What has changed though is the time in-between noise and peace. Seems like less is best and my environment has changed a bit to afford me a place where I can keep the noise in my head to a minimum these days.
Interviews have a way of stirring things up. Was there a question or an answer from the first Lucid News piece that stayed with you afterwards, either something you wish you'd said differently or something you meant more than you realised?
No regrets…..I say what’s on my mind and go with it. Sure there are times where you are like, why did I just say that??? Do we ever really just shut up probably not. If there is something to say though music is a far better vehicle than pissing somebody off with verbally. Not going to be “Boxed In”.
You closed the first interview by saying music has always saved you from yourself. Some time on, is music still doing that same saving, or has your relationship with what it does for you changed at all?
Life would be a mess without it……..everything would seem a little too black. No way to live. I wrote a track recently called “Black" and it’s just about that. Can you imagine black being the new scene? Velvet air making it hard to breathe? I think as long as there is music black will never ever really be the new thing. We should all find colors in the seams in-between.
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