Sebastian Blue Releases Album "Full Fathom Five"
Some scholars believe that Shakespeare did his best writing in lockdown during quarantine. Four centuries later, 12th grader Sebastian Blue used self-isolation during COVID-19 to take on the Bard with an album of original music that reimagines some of the outmoded themes in The Tempest. Sebastian created “Full Fathom Five,” a 13-track album that gives voice to the unheard and un-listened-to cultures of the New World that were backdrop to Shakespeare’s story about a magical remote island visited by Europeans. With the aim of “de-colonializing” The Tempest, the album features more than 60 musicians (including New Roads alumni) from 12 countries and cultures.
Sebastian wrote, recorded, performed and produced the album almost entirely at home in a makeshift studio in his family’s converted garage, with a budget of $200. He refined “Full Fathom Five” as a student at Berklee School of Music’s online and in-person summer programs. He also drew inspiration from an astonishing range of sources and collaborators, including a Santería priest, a "rappeur activiste" exiled from the Congo, and some of the last-known speakers of a vanishing Mayan dialect. The result is an album that bends genres and shatters expectations. Full Fathom Five fuses jazz, hip-hop, contemporary classical, West African rap, Americana and folk, opera, singer-songwriter, pop-rock, sea shanty and traditional Caribbean percussion, amongst others.
Sebastian says, “I want ‘Full Fathom Five’ to inspire people to keep their ears and brains open. The album traverses so much - from classical music to jazz and lots of other genres. I want people to understand that Shakespeare isn’t boring, that you can revisit things and reframe ideas.”
Sebastian will stage “Full Fathom Five” here at New Roads at the end of the school year - performing set design, lighting design, costuming, music design and casting - as the culmination of his ISP.
“Full Fathom Five” is available on Apple Music, Spotify and other platforms. Click here to stream/listen. The album is available for order on vinyl with 100 pre-orders (need a last-minute holiday gift?). Learn more about “Full Fathom Five” in this week’s edition of The Argonaut.
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