Big Sea, by Rev Simpkins

Big Sea

by Rev Simpkins

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nujumi A gorgeously produced album that draws me in through a wealth of musical, spiritual and geographic references that make me sing. Favorite track: Holy Innocents' Day.

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
CD housed in a 32-page saddle-stitched softback book, with lyrics typeset and illustrated by artist Tom Knight.

Includes unlimited streaming of Big Sea via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Limited edition CD and hardback book
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
The CD is housed in a 32-page perfect-bound hardback book, with lyrics typeset and illustrated by artist Tom Knight.

Includes unlimited streaming of Big Sea via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.	Advent (whispered light) 04:42	buy track
2.	Big Sea 03:25	buy track
3.	Creeksailor 03:33	buy track
4.	Pelican 05:24	buy track
5.	Psalm 04:34	buy track
6.	Asleep in the Stern 04:08	buy track
7.	Song of the Martyr's Lover 03:57	buy track
8.	Holy Innocents' Day 02:19	buy track
9.	All Feeling Sense Seems to be Gone 02:23	buy track
10.	Hands 06:25	buy track
11.	Welsh Jane 04:10	buy track
12.	Out of the Depths 05:15	buy track
13.	Sing Your Life 03:25	buy track

about

Big Sea, Rev Simpkins’ new album and illustrated book is a life-affirming meditation on hope during dark times. This new collection of exuberant and eccentric songs was written during the Rev’s diagnosis, treatment and recovery from cancer and drummer James De’ath’s illness with sepsis. What resulted was an emotive celebration of the peaks and troughs of life and death told through off-kilter songs about east coast creeks, shattering storms, mystic pelicans and the Colchester martyrs.

The Reverend Matthew Simpkins is best known to antigen afficionados for his heavy-weight hollering in gospel fiddle duo Sons of Joy. And he is, in fact, a real vicar - from the fourth generation of his family to be ordained priest in the Church of England. Prior to ordination, Matt was a professional musician. He collaborated with Kenney Jones of the Small Faces to reconstruct the orchestral parts of their 1968 psychedelic masterpiece Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, and gained notoriety through his raucous and melodious exploits in FuzzFace. The Reverend’s 2008 solo album, Babbler & Crow, and 2009 LP, Lions were praised by the national folk and music press, and were heralded by the legendary poet-musician Martin Newell. Eleven years since the last Rev album, Matt’s unexpected illness brought with it an opportunity to make new music.

Rev Simpkins’s distinctive sound is a brew of outlandish tunefulness, string-snapping fingerpicking, and sanctified psychedelia. Shades of the Kinks, Captain Beefheart, and Pavement meld with church choirs and pipe organs, pre-war Gospel Blues, strings, brass bands, and Bert Jansch style finger-twanged guitar. Big Sea features singer-songwriter Ady Johnson, Daniel Merrill (Dead Rat Orchestra, Sons of Joy), and Toby Bull (FuzzFace) and was recorded in Cornard (Suffolk), Colchester (Essex) and Cairo (Egypt) in the spring of 2020.

“If you can imagine Tom Waits collaborating with early Captain Beefheart on a set of folk-psyche songs, you’ll be somewhere close to the sound of ‘Big Sea’… this is utterly intriguing from start to finish.” (9/10 – Vive Le Rock)

“There is an extraordinary intensity about this album… dark but sublime musings on mortality, sin and the divine… intelligent and articulate work couched in never less-than-interesting and often breathtaking musical arrangement… I can only say I am deeply grateful for a unique encounter.” (5 stars – R2R)

credits

released September 25, 2020

This album is dedicated to Siân
‘…awake and asleep, in joy and in sorrow, in life and in death…’

Produced by Matthew Simpkins

Recorded in Cornard (Suffolk), Colchester (Essex) and Cairo (Egypt)

Engineered by Karl Younger (good engineering) and Matthew Simpkins (bad engineering)

Artwork, and design by Tom Knight (tomknightillustration.co.uk)

Photography by James Fletcher

All songs: words, music and arrangement (p) and © copyright 2020 Matthew Simpkins. Except Holy Innocents’ Day: words, music and arrangement (p) and © copyright 2020 Matthew Simpkins and Martha Simpkins.

The Reverend Matthew Simpkins: vocals, guitars, bass guitar, violin, viola, ‘cello, organs and synthesizers, stylophone, nonsense.

The Phantom Notes
James De’ath: drums
Karl Younger: bass
Toby Bull: trumpet, saxophone
Daniel Merrill: violin
Adrian Johnson: harmonica
Siân Simpkins: french horn, patience
James Simpkins: Bb horn (Asleep in the Stern)
Martha Simpkins: trumpet (Asleep in the Stern), vocals (Holy Innocents’ Day)

Especial thanks to Tom Knight, the musicians, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Stephen Cottrell, Jason Whittaker, and Adam Wisher.

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about

antigen records Ipswich, UK

DIY record label / niche interest vanity project, still operating out of a bedroom on a council estate in Ipswich.

antigenrecords.com

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