Sea Power – Man Of Aran

The reissue of Sea Power’s Man Of Aran score on 25 August 2023, which will see the album released on vinyl for the first time.

In 2009 the band, then known as British Sea Power, were commissioned by the Edinburgh Film Festival to create their own soundtrack for the 1934 quasi-documentary, which they premiered by playing along live during a screening at the event.

A studio version of the album followed in May the same year, while more screening/performances took place at the BFI in London and at cinemas in Brighton and Sheffield, while events were also staged on a series of islands, including Jersey, the Hebrides and a Norwegian islet in the Arctic Circle.

Charting the activities of fisherman based on a remote outcrop in mouth of Galway Bay in western Ireland, Robert J Flaherty’ Man Of Aran captured a disappearing way of life as Aran’s inhabitants battled daily against the elements to survive, something that chimed deeply with Sea Power’s own curiosity for the past and their urgent, environmentally-driven concerns for the future.

The resulting, mainly instrumental score, proved to be a true artistic collaboration that stretched across the decades, earning the group widespread acclaim upon its release, both for the music’s simpatico relationship with the original film and as a stand alone work in its own right.

Declared by The Quietus on release as a “perfect symbiosis that should rightly be regarded as something of an understated classic,” Ireland’s Hot Press called it “Stunning… breath-taking” while NME encouraged listeners to “let it all gloriously wash over you.”

Fans will finally be able to experience that artistic and emotional depth on vinyl with this reissue.

Format – Limited Edition Yellow/Blue Coloured Vinyl 2LP