By: Erica Raley
Before starting Now Beacon Now Sea, Jeremy Audet had eight years of individually released music to draw new inspiration. With the help of his like-minded high school friends, Avery Sturgeon and Reilly Hyde, the band started coming to fruition.
Having been good friends for over a decade, Audet often turned to them for advice on his work. While Now Beacon Now Sea started as Audet’s solo project, Sturgeon and Hyde “slowly cemented their positions in the band” as Audet yearned to expand his work into something bigger.
Sturgeon and Hyde inspired Audet through helpful insight and scholarly expertise, seeing as they both went to different colleges for audio engineering. Audet, self-taught, enjoyed the technical perfectionism Sturgeon and Hyde brought to the table. As talented musicians dedicated to the project, Audet quickly brought them on board to the Now Sea Now Beacon project.
All three members come from different musical backgrounds, with Sturgeon and Hyde more on the punk side of things and Audet a bit more indie-folk. Now Beacon Now Sea’s sound, however, is inspired by ambient forms of music- instrumental breaks, raw cuts and balanced variation- Audet said the main thing that appeals to him is instruments playing back and forth
“I really look for the interplay between guitars. It’s very light-sounding, not in your face. I don’t look for complexity, but I enjoy playing with dimension,” Audet explained.
One way he achieves dimension in his music is by using a Nashville-tuned guitar with six strings that can produce the sound of a higher-pitched instrument, such as a mandolin, banjo, ukulele, 12-string guitar, or even a six-string guitar with a capo. The four lower strings are tuned up an octave from standard tuning to do this, while the two highest strings, the B and high E, remain the same.
Audet described his sound as the opposite of music that grounds you- music that sets you afloat, music that sets you free. The relationship between this goal and the name of the band, Now Beacon Now Sea is attributed to an Irish author, poet and playwright- Sam Becket.
Sam Becket has a trilogy series in which the characters adapt to the socio-economic disarray in a post-World War II setting. In the second novel in the trilogy, entitled Malone Dies, his characters progressively become more and more detached from reality. The novel feels pregnant with meaning like the characters are constantly at the precipice of some important discovery. The characters, stuck in this liminal space between understanding and chaos, are “constantly falling into themselves,” an emotion which inspired the breezy nature of Audet’s music.
“There is one beautiful line that sums it all up. Becket takes us into the artistic world of expressing the inexpressible. The line is: ‘unfathomable mind, now beacon, now sea’,” said Audet.
The inspiration behind the band’s name, this line aims to reveal a particular paradox: the mind is both vast and undecipherable, but the mind is the only tool we have with which we can decipher it.
While the theme of the inspiring novel behind Now Beacon Now Sea’s name is the post-genocidal state of the collective, Audet’s songs are informed by loose creative forms, not by critical analysis. While Audet may not be actively commenting on the world around him with his music, he does try to embody certain emotions with his work, such as the light, airy feeling associated with disassociating from the body.
Juxtaposing these heavy feelings with weightless music is a soothing practice for Audet, which he eloquently described as a “stimulating comfort”. Audet has played guitar for 15 years, and while there are stagnation periods where he puts it down for a time, it is always something to come back to. He said his creative process includes a lot of improvisation, which comes to him easily and allows him to tap into a creative space he feels is underused in his everyday life. Then, sharing this music and getting feedback from others is a fun bonus.
Now Beacon Now Sea has already released an EP in October of this year and dipped their toes into the world of live performance. Valuing the ability to connect with people and give them something to enjoy, playing music live is a way to weld these passions together.
“There’s just something in the air that creates an aura,” said Audet, referring to his purpose for performing. “Maybe it’s the musical vibrations, call it whatever. But everyone is connected in one moment. There is this temporary but beautiful magnetism between the performer and the viewer. It transcends music tastes and genres.”
Audet’s affinity for performing is driven by the ability to unite people through a shared passion, and he equally loves witnessing and being a dedicated, passionate, human performer.
Now Beacon Now Sea is keen to play more live music in the new year, particularly in their two homesteads, Montreal and Ottawa. They’re looking forward to adding a new dimension to their already recorded songs and introducing their new music to a public audience. Audet claimed they have many new songs on the back burner, but he is waiting to return to Ottawa to record them with Sturgeon and Hyde.
“Moving forward, we want to create honest and fun music. It’s not the mixing and mastering that makes good music. It is produced by me, in a bedroom, and two other guys, in their bedroom. Anything else is dishonest,” said Audet
Audet described their upcoming sound as deviating heavily from the sounds of their first EP, nodding to a particular new song that has been compared to Peach Pit. This song will be released on January 17th.
Also, keep an eye out for a duet in collaboration with the talented Ottawa vocalist Halley Mckeown. This will be Now Beacon Now Sea’s first duet, emphasizing their broadening horizons and taking new music as it comes. One thing that captured me during our interview was the unpredictability of it all; as they continue to grow and expand, we don’t know what to expect next, in the best possible way.
“It’s fun, not being restrained by any expectations,” Audet said as Now Beacon Now Sea continues to keep us on the edge of our seats.