Fourteen Nights At Sea

Post-rock has suffered decline in cultural currency in recent years, but can it be revived by bands like Melbourne’s Fourteen Nights At Sea? Words by RENÉ SCHAEFER.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] At first sight, Fourteen Nights At Sea’s self-titled vinyl opus looks to have been teleported from some kind of prog rock parallel universe. There’s the gatefold sleeve featuring mist-shrouded bucolic landscapes, previously the domain of ’70s album cover design giants Hypgnosis. There’s also a distinct lack of information. The band remains resolutely anonymous – the kind of gestures beloved by long-haired fret worriers who saw themselves as artists rather than entertainers. Yeah, we get it: the work should speak for itself. Ho hum.

Not surprisingly, the music contained on these hefty slabs of black plastic belongs to a genre that is often dismissed as just as indulgent and soporific as its dinosaur rock antecedents. Post-rock has suffered a decline in cultural currency in recent years. More often than not it is cynically viewed as the domain of mopey males with an abundance of facial hair and a predilection for piling on guitar effects.

Personally, I blame those utter bores, Chicago’s Tortoise, for starting this trend towards the stultifying. That’s not to say the genre can’t produce some surprisingly affecting artifacts. Whether this is one of them depends entirely on your individual perspective, or indeed the mood your find yourself in when deciding to drop the needle into the groove of that forbiddingly expansive first of four sides.

Fourteen Nights At Sea is not just the name of this Melbourne instrumental band, but also an apt description of the kind of mood or mental imagery their music might evoke. ‘The Dead House’ doesn’t so much kick things off as it slowly fades in over several minutes. Its gloomy, forboding atmosphere is compounded by the nagging question whether it should be listened to at 33 or 45rpm. Either way is kind of pleasing. Majestic, feedback laden faux-symphonic slowcore drones build until the inevitable crescendo smashes in like a drunk stumbling in the front door at 4am. ‘Clubber VS’ is almost jaunty in comparison, coming on like a Daydream Nation out-take. Its restless guitar overtones keep things lively, while underneath the rhythm section goes feral. The excitement is all too much for these guys though, and by the coda ‘Hornacek’ they subside into a moody fug again.

‘In Violent Times’ is the piece-de-resistance, taking up all of side B. A pretty, pastoral intro is gradually accented with light snare drum taps. These become more insistent, until the previously somnambulant piece picks up pace, accelerating to a leisurely canter. Harmonious guitar notes float to the surface, before a washy carpet of distortion threatens to envelop all before it. The band breaks into a more urgent tumble of reverbed scree and nervous rhythmic clutter, speeding towards a conclusion of flutey feedback notes. Yes, it works, despite being utterly predictable in its structure.

Predictability, of course, has never been a dirty word among the post-rock fraternity; quite the opposite in fact. A lot of the genre’s charm lies in the anticipation of the final pay-off following those lengthy build-ups. In a live setting especially, this is the ultimate headbanger music. Fourteen Nights At Sea are smart enough to realise this and choose not to distract with fancy lyrics or prescriptive concepts. The meaning of their music is as vague as their artwork, leaving the listener to dream up their own imaginary narratives. Personally, I couldn’t help but be drawn back to the metaphorical sea upon which this crew like to imagine themselves sailing. Rather than evoking images of hardy, salt-encrusted seafarers heroically battling the elements though, what comes to mind more readily are visions of a listing ancient vessel marooned on the windless, seweed-choked Sargasso Sea.

“The good ship post-rock is taking on water, but the sailors are too apathetic to keep bailing.”

Over and over, the crew’s valiant endeavours to fight inertia and cabin fever on this hopeless journey are thwarted. A lethargic, hallucinatory seasickness overwhelms everything and the captain’s log reads like an elegy to human folly. By the 14th night, his fever-ravaged scrawl is barely legible: “We Have Reason To Be Afraid, This Is A Terrible Place” is his last delirious diary entry.

Tremolo notes and false start rhythms rise and subside like the sea itself. The terminally ill commander tosses on his sweat-soaked filthy cot, trying to raise himself from his death bed one last time to take charge of his disintegrating ship. He manages some sudden outbursts of explosive fury, cursing God and his predicament. Outside is nothing but the static, oily black sea. Come the morning of the 15th day, the captain is dead, rotting, tied to the mast by his debased crew, who hum a terrible funeral march. There will be no dancing. Hungry seagulls peck the eyeballs from the captain’s decomposing skull. The good ship Post-rock is taking on water, but the sailors are too apathetic to keep bailing. Soon, seaweed and coral will cover its submerged hull, before eventually erasing all traces of its builders’ hopes and ideals.

No such narrative exists, of course. That is the beauty of Fourteen Nights At Sea’s music – it is cinematic, yet entirely non-specific. It’s going nowhere fast, but it makes one appreciate the melancholic journey of not getting there. It threatens to sink, weighed down by its own pretensions, but it is also empty, waiting to have its blankness projected upon by the listener. It is anachronistic and kind of pointless, but it is exactly that which makes it interesting.

+

'Fourteen Nights At Sea' is out now independently. More information here.