Andreas Brandal and Rambutan crafted Maiden Voyage across an ocean spanning the distance between Albany, New York (landlocked, I know), and Bergen, Norway (much less landlocked—meaning not landlocked at all).
There are details.
Most of them nautical.
The timbers creak violently as the vessel navigates the pack ice of the Northwest Passage on its way through the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific. No one attempts this voyage in the dead of winter, and October’s a bit late for the captain to feel confident about this, but the icebreaker plows ahead nonetheless.
The freezing sea is as desolate as a desert, as a mountain range violently formed from tectonic shift. Hardened men grip rope, grip wooden railings, brace against the bitter, bitter cold. Whiteout conditions lift, but to a blue hammered unbreakable by the earth’s climate. Compasses can’t fail. Soundings reveal ice sheets nigh indestructible. If hope persists, it is hidden.
Brandal and Rambutan breathe the subzero temperatures deeply, and ice crystals form in their lungs. Their adventures are documented in the sounds of the sea, the whitecaps breaking on rocky shores far from safety. They are explorers in uncharted waters, their passage heralding discovery and tragedy in equal measure.
(Unrelated postscript: How on earth did my handwriting get stolen for this thing? The j-card contains the spitting image of my penmanship.)
Part of the December Oxtail Recordings batch.
More about: Andreas Brandal, Rambutan, Skeleton Harbor
