Unwed The Sailor Band

Unwed Sailor has a new disc coming out this fall. It will be a new direction for the band in at least one respect: it will be its first with vocals. Notes Fanatic Promotion, the band's PR gurus: If listeners were shocked by the ambient direction Johnathon Ford took with the Circles EP, the prelude to the first Unwed Sailor album in three years, they'll be even more perplexed to hear vocals for the first time from an artist whose music has become synonymous with post-rock, instrumental landscapes. Unwed Sailor's latest masterpiece, The White Ox (to be released this fall on Philadelphia’s Burnt Toast Vinyl) comes during a year of several releases for Unwed Sailor when originally there were to be practically none. Initially, Ford only planned on releasing remixes of an out-of-print 7” in 2006. In 2005, Ford traveled to the Bloomington, IN basement studio of frequent collaborator Dan Burton (Early Day Miners, Ativin) to commence work on the project. Here they were joined by guitarist Phillip Blackwell (Questions in Dialect) and musician Matt Griffi and before they knew it, Burton's basement was giving birth to The White Ox. Upon completion of the album, Ford discovered a 16-minute opus within The White Ox, with two separate movements, “Mist” and “Mesa”. They sounded strong and different enough to stand alone and precede the album's arrival. That piece comprised the “Circles” EP, released in the spring of 2006. Ready for the fall, The White Ox is a recording that defies classification in the rock genre. The album continues on from where Ford's previous album, The Marionette and the Music Box left off with “Shadows” echoing those staccato melodies, but channeling them through a dark dream of ambient effects. Here, Ford and Burton are challenging their audience, the fans that loved the upbeat melodies of The Faithful Anchor and were charmed by the sweet fairytale aspects of Marionette. The White Ox is brooding, washed in the night air darkness to which “Shadows” alludes. Surprisingly, for the traditionally instrumental Unwed Sailor, both “Gila” and “Numbers” feature longtime Ford collaborator Dan Burton's vocals, with Ford's murmuring falsetto providing the haunting background for “Gila's” almost gothic melody... Some songs: Ruby's Wishes Snowcaps Golden Cities Riddle of Stars Old Ironside Chandelier At Peace in the Forest Asleep in the Forest