Recorded in early 2011 with a small gathering of Australian roots musicians, Sea Of Lights is the latest release by Susannah Espie.
Recorded with Jeff Lang in the heat of the summer, these songs display warmth that is not determined by the weather.
“Heart Beating” demonstrates her songwriting talent and also is an excellent showcase for the other artists on the record. Chris Altmann picks a wonderful mandolin and the vocal harmonies of Liz Stringer and Espie are dazzling on this track and others.
Lang adds some wonderful slide guitar on “Fly Away”, one of the five tracks Espie has written with Charles Jenkins.
Van Walker picks some guitar on “Blue Mountains”, a song that invokes that imagery of flying back home to Australia.
The space between the banjos, guitars and vocals on this record give it the room to breathe and allow you to connect lyrically with the song or drift away with the excellent musicianship.
Down and out country songs don’t get any better than” Raining In Armidale”, and although not written by Espie, her voice shows the ache of being stuck in a god forsaken place and down to your last cigarette.
Recorded in four days, the writing and playing show that the whole album is greater than its singular parts. We are lucky to have musicians who can slip into this groove so simply.
