Before I Saw the Sea

Before I Saw The Sea is an album about anticipation and change. The moments in which we feel the certainties that hold us securely in place come adrift. Me and My Friends' new release is an immersive set of nighttime meditations conceived during lockdown, replete with laidback grooves combining bittersweet nostalgia with hypnotic rhythmic interplay. This is a record made to accompany journeys when none could be made, as we awaited the parting of the stormy clouds. Lockdowns brought us into a collective sense of time that was abruptly unhurried, yet filled with an urgent sense of anticipation. This state of being is encapsulated in the slow-burning Afrobeat groove of the title track, Sam Murray's spacious, rasping clarinet solo followed by Nick Rasle's haunting vocal brimming with understated melancholy. "The long stretches of lockdown meant that I could start with an idea and it would percolate unhindered, revisited each day without interruption from the frantic churn of everyday life before. This clarity of thought harked back to my first attempts at songwriting aged 12, where creativity was an end in itself." Singer and Guitarist, Nick Rasle