Bringing you up to speed on Travel By Sea

Travel by Sea.  One of the most interesting stories I have heard in a while, well heard a couple of years ago at least.  One that I always like telling as it is a great one.

It goes a little like this…two guys who have never met record some music and put it together.  It sounds pretty good.  They turn it into an album.  It sounds pretty good.  They meet, play some shows, it works out pretty good.  They in turn make another album and sign to a cool label and do some more shows, get a couple of more guys to round out the band.  You have Travel By Sea in a nutshell.

All that sounds simple and ridiculous, but it is essentially true, a great start of two strangers from across the country (Kyle Kersten & Brian Kraft) to a full blown band (now with the inclusion of Trevor Gerhard & Dan Moore).  This growth to a foursome was only a matter of time as the sound needed a full line up to play and the music had to be played.  Now TBS has the two albums under their belt (“Shadow’s Rise” and “Days of My Escape”) and are working on a new EP that should be hitting our ears in early 2009.

To get a feel of the indie-folk sound of Travel By Sea, you can grab a couple of tracks from “Shadow’s Rise – “I Won’t Let You Down” and “Complete Shakeup” courtesy of their website.  You might notice a fuller sound from a couple of tracks from “Days of My Escape” with “Truth Was” and “Split Second Time” from the Autumn Tone website.  One additional note that the track “Too Much Too Quickly” that ended up on their follow up release “Days of My Escape” was also featured on the Yer Bird Compilation album “Folk Music For The End of The World” which also comes highly recommended.

They are currently recording a song for a tribute to Paul McCartney’s “Ram” album which should be out very soon (actual release TBA at the mo’).  The track Travel By Sea is covering is “Back Seat of My Car” of which Kyle has incorporated his own touches (yeah, you could call it that).  In his words the song is now more like a long lost Will Johnson or Jason Molina song.

Well with that mention of covers, I have attached two covers of songs performed by Travel By Sea, one is from a Sparklehorse Tribute where they cover “Return To Me” and the other is “Closing Down My House” that just so happens to be a Will Johnson track.

Now that you are up to speed, check out Travel By Sea:
MySpace
Website
Autumn Tone Records (you may know this as Aquarium Drunkard’s label)

~Smansmith