It takes place in a fictional world stylized around the age of steamships from the 1890s through the 1920s. It has fantasy elements tossed in there. It follows the main character Phillip who leaves his home to become a sailor in the company of Captain Oligald, an old sailor that can do cool Gandalf style wizard stuff. There’s Officer Lightroller (the voice singing “Hold it true, one of you holds the key to our plea”), and Alice, the navigator (the falsetto vocals singing “We mustn’t stay too long” are her). The actual telling of the story was as important to me as the production of each track, since I do intend on writing a proper summary of the entire story after the album comes out. Trust though that it does follow the story closely and will make sense once the album is out.
The cover is based on those old field notebooks farmers used to keep back in the 50s and 60s, it’s supposed to look like a map on a cheap notebook that someone in this world may have. The island circled in red (as well as the word circled in red below) is Southfordia, the location this song takes place at. It’s a bustling and lively port city, which I tried to communicate with the lyrics as well as the slightly chaotic nature of the first half.
