Chris and Thomas

Land Of Sea

Defend Music

This is what happens when two Liverpool musicians (who met at the same art school there as John Lennon and Paul McCartney) come to Los Angeles and end up for a few days in the desert. It’s a good thing, too. Chris and Thomas are from similar stock as the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Pentangle and other folk-influenced English artists. They carried on with their traveling revue, “Cook au Van” all over the UK before heading way west to California. Quickly, the pair found an affinity for the desolate land around Joshua Tree, and wrote some of the songs for Land Of Sea with a feel for their new home and what they’d left behind in Great Britain. It’s an alluring amalgamation of an overgrown countryside crossed with the sweep of wide open spaces, where day skies are full of clouds and night skies filled with stars. The sound of solitude runs deep here; nothing is rushed and both men seem to have the assurance of two old souls who’ve somehow found themselves with brand new lives. Their voices have grown together into one instrument, impossible to imagine apart. Producer Mark Howard, known for his work with Daniel Lanois, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, U2 and others, makes sure the music wraps itself around the moving spirits alive on Land Of Sea. Even the title suggests a leap of faith, maybe more a contradiction in terms, but Chris and Thomas never think twice about an accomplishment that feels like a musical destiny finally fulfilled.