Stephen Caulfield Captures the Sense of Mystery and Wonder at Seeing the Lights of a Ship Passing in the Dark On “A Light In the Sea at Night”

StephenCaulfield_FieldOfView1_crop — Stephen Caulfield, photo courtesy the artist

There is something mysterious and tranquil about seeing the lights of a ship on a large body of water at night as it passes either in the distance or nearby. Whether a passenger ship or a ship of a different purpose whose navigation lights alert you to their presence in the darkness. Stephen Caulfield gives voice to that stirring of the imagination on his song “A Light In the Sea at Night.” Slow pulsing drones cross over each other and distort at that intersection of tone to embody the break in the darkness from the ship lights, the fluidity of the motion and in the background a hint of sound like the ship’s radio providing essential data or a program played to have something human with the crew at the helm through the night when they’ve all talked about each other’s lives into oblivion and it’s too late to have anything interesting to say. Caulfield captures both the way sight of the ships is striking and sets the mind to wonder where the ship might be going or coming from and who would be aboard at that hour as well as the comfort in the meditative isolation from the everyday world that must exist if you’re on the crew, the movement, the constant sound of machines operating, the lap of the water on the hull and the sounds one chooses to bring aboard to maintain that connection to a world outside such a hermetic setting. Listen to “A Light In the Sea at Night” on Spotify and follow Stephen Caulfield at the links provided.