In September 2015, pianist Luke Duffy and guitarist Shell Dooley combined to create an ambient post-rock and instrumental project with a trio of EP's as Variant Sea, the first release of which was Seasons of Mist, followed by Fable in 2016, and now Selene which was just released yesterday. Pianist Luke Duffy is based in Reykjavik, Iceland, whilst Dooley ploughs her musical trade as the lead-guitarist of Montauk Hotel in Dublin. Across the 1,500 kilometres between both capital cities, both musicians have dedicated themselves to their ongoing collaboration, when it would have been easy to ask "Why?" and call it a day.
It's (the music) beautiful, sad, classical, life-affirming and in some ways makes you, the listener, a little bit too aware of your own mortality. Beauty is a desperately fleeting thing, and it's all around us, but we are numb to noticing it. I've always felt that Variant Sea were there to remind us of that waste.
Selene digs into places you want to and don't want to feel, the introduction to the EP conjures an image of an oak-wood panelled room filled with guests around the piano listening attentively. 'Winter Dance' is a sad beauty, there are so many tangents the listener can go off into here, an unhappy childhood, an optimistic life that just never worked out, the piano is the hopeful promise, the guitar is the reality. One of the great hoodwinks of life is that it should be filled with happiness and joy, it's not, and not in a pessimistic way, it just isn't.
A gentle breath is exhaled at the opening of 'Selene', a sigh of relief, a break from the world. Duffy's piano playing here is sadness, too real, and the gentle sway of the music is far more powerful than it asks for. A guttural choke expands on 'Khione' before what is a piano masterpiece in 'Ghosts', those nymph like keys at the intro grow into sublime beauty, the protagonist is lost, the grandeur emphatic, once again this collusion between both artists breaches musical standards. It's a relationship hued in beauty and feeling, and there are no gaps.
