Spurred by Trump’s election, Brian Cassidy of Wren & Shark Record Collective decided to do what little he could to push us a few precious inches in the right direction. Enlisting the help of a rather impressive array of talented friends, he has assembled a compilation to be sold in support the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC,) one of the US’s leading environmental non-profit organisations. The album comes complete with artwork by John Sabraw, an environmental artist and activist who uses pigments from polluted streams to create his ‘toxic art’ (which you can find out about here). Check out the full tracklisting below:

1. Jonathan Meiburg (of Shearwater) – Reincarnation
2.Will Courtney – I Got Your Back
3. Will Johnson – Nervousness Fangs
4. Mikaela Davis – Pure Divine Love
5. S. Carey – Shiny Shoes (The Pines cover)
6. The Eastern Sea – The Entertainer
7. Reservations – Planet
8. Lowland Hum – We’re All Waiting
9. Brian S. Cassidy – Darkest Doubt
10. Black Before Red – Envy
11. Good Field – Surface Tension
12. Nori – The Garden

With the likes of Will Johnson, S. Carey and Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg involved, the release also serves as a timely reminder of the effectiveness of generosity and collaboration, a example of our only way forward – grouping together our talents and energies into something larger and more powerful than any one individual. Trump and his ilk are going to try to convince us that the environment doesn’t matter, that art doesn’t matter, that people of certain colours and genders and backgrounds don’t matter. It’s up to us, not only to resist, but to prove him wrong.

Wren & Shark & Friends is out today and you can grab your copy from the Wren & Shark Bandcamp page for as little as $10, though remember that all profits go direct to the NRDC.

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Tracklisting:

1. A Hospital + Crucifix Made of Plastic – Florist
2. Richmond – talons’
3. Say – Indoor Voices
4. Aeroplane – House Plants
5. When I Was an Island – David Karsten Daniels
6. The Gentleman’s Apocalypse – JR Green
7. Hitman – Mrs. Hopewell
8. sun drops – ratbath
9. A Cruise – Brian S. Cassidy
10. Orpheus – Matt Kivel
11. Your Love – Jeremy Squires (INTERVIEW)
12. Blood Moon – C.M. Slenko
13. Bake – Broken Beak
14. Brushes Like a Fox – Saint Corsair
15. daniel – francie cool
16. Baby Blue – Mount Moriah
17. For You – Free Cake For Every Creature
18. Have This Dance – Govier
19. Goodness (trailer) – The Hotelier
20. The River Because – Sawtooth
21. why are you so cool? – Dying Adolescence
22. cockroach – tall friend
23. Waiting – Faint Peter
24. Heart Destroyer – Lazy Legs
25. Take it Forever – Beat Radio (INTERVIEW)
26. Every One of Them, Dogs – Quarterly
27. like a feather or a pawprint – Field Medic
28. Lay For June – Old Earth
29. 2 old 2 broke – Gorgeous Bully
30. Funny Man Routine – Table People
31. House & Home – Arlo Aldo
32. Cave Song – Sea Ghost
33. Everywhere (Fleetwood Mac cover) – Boosegumps (from Sugar Rush)

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The first track on Alpine Seas is ‘I’m An Ocean, which introduces the album’s tone and themes immediately. In terms of sound it could be filed alongside artists such as S. Carey, feeling somehow natural and panoramic, not unlike the landscape on the album art. ‘Beyond the Dark’ is a love song about finding peace in the quiet moments, evoking that period of time just before sunrise when the sky begins to brighten slowly and the hidden edges of the darkness become softer and less unknown. When life feels every bit as magical as it should.

“Beyond the glow there is a place
Where the shade bends with the night
Where I’ve been known to go
To help my mind hear my heart”

‘A Cruise’ has acoustic guitars and piano and the same undulating vocal melodies and electrified sense of the natural world that I associate with Bon Iver. ‘Arcadia’ is like one of the more upbeat songs from Evening Hymns and has shades of the same outlook, of finding solace and encouragement in nature, quite literally the classical notion of Arcadia. The song is imbued with a sense of hope and encouragement, a positive outlook that feels sometimes all too rare in serious, thoughtful art. “Walking in the pine wood / I feel I could say the words that could make you love me,” Cassidy sings, “I haven’t figured them out, but I’m gonna try / I haven’t asked you yet but I’m going to try, try, try”. ‘Uncompahgre’ is a rockin’ Americana track with pedal steel and talk of sunsets in the American West, the warm and rich acoustic guitar on ‘Make Believin’ accentuated with horns and layered vocals, and ‘Clare’s Bridge’ opens with glacial atmospherics before the entrance of big crunchy electric guitars. ‘The South’ is one of those songs that rises above its own sense of sorrow, feeling if not joyous then at least hopeful, with mandolin and charming backing vocals from Cassidy’s seven year old daughter.

“Do you remember all the times we spent
in our lives looking up at the stars?
How can you afford to
forget what I cannot?
Is it all the same?
Does it take all you got?”

‘Rich Man’ is a set in the aftermath of a break-up, all elegant piano and electric guitar, before ‘If I Could Right a Song’ offers a simple acoustic track about finding that mythical collection of words and chord changes that captures the hearts of society, a song that brings not just fortune and fame but also the love of the people you care about most.

Alpine Seas is a record about the wonder of the world and the fact that we’re alive in it. That feeling you get when looking at the star-scattered sky, the feeling of infinite smallness and insignificance before the vastness of the universe, the way your problems pale when held up to the persistent beauty of the natural world. Alpine Seas was released by Wren & Shark, a really cool not-for-profit independent record label who give 100% of proceeds directly to the artist. You can buy it now from the Brian S. Cassidy Bandcamp page.

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