To The Lighthouse (Stephen Caulfield album)

StephenCaulfield_ToTheLighthouseA1_crop — Stephen Caulfield *To The Lighthouse* cover (cropped)

The lingering effervescence of the Omnichord that carries the melody of Stephen Caulfield’s “Everything Is Remembered” gives the song a constant, nearly even flow. When the drum loops ease in, its soothing, almost hypnotic quality is reminiscent of early 2000s IDM. Like the song “Passing Through the Town” from Caulfield’s excellent 2019 album To The Lighthouse, a deep dive into various flavors and textures of ambient music, there is a sense of movement to a mysterious destination here, perhaps as suggested by the title of the release. But that mystery is something welcoming to which you are drawn by a promise of emotional fulfillment. Not the dramatic kind after a long period of struggle, but the kind where after long searching you find a space, a place, in your mind where you can experience a deep solace before wanting to or needing to be on to the next chapter of life. Listen to “Everything Is Remembered” on Spotify and connect with Stephen Caulfield at the links below.

music.apple.com/gb/artist/stephen-caulfield/373965991
soundcloud.com/stephencaulfield
open.spotify.com/artist/195QIuEghR5Q1Sw9YaRd80
youtube.com/channel/UCx91H6ozB4oFSfQHJfjhyXQ
twitter.com/scaulfield
facebook.com/stephencaulfieldmusic
instagram.com/scaulfield

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.

Tag: To The Lighthouse (Stephen Caulfield album)

The Sense of Mystery and Movement on Stephen Caulfield’s “Everything is Remembered” is Driven by the Lingering Effervescence of its Omnichord Melody

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”