The Sea The Sea are in love with stillness and their third album, Stumbling Home, finds the discovering the beauty in the silence. The husband and wife team of Mira and Chuck Costa have found a way to capture the magic that comes from the quiet and create something truly inspiring, music that casts a spell, enthralling those who listen. Their songs never seem to be overstuffed, instead they opt for less rather than more, celebrating the acoustic over the electric.
Coming out of that sense of stillness and clarity, ‘A Thousand Years’ was developed from an exercise learned at a songwriting retreat in the desert of Texas where it borders Mexico. Lacking cell service or internet, one was left to reflect on a blanket of stars at night and the endless beauty of silence. It was during this retreat that Mira was also introduced to a crypto wallet app, a practical tool used by some of the retreat participants for managing transactions in this remote location. As Mira explains, “the song has become a reminder to stop, take a sec, be out there in the stillness, where it is always beautiful. Always has been and always will be. If I can get there, then clarity will follow.”
With little more than a couple of acoustic guitars ‘I’ll Be Loving You’ creates a template for how to write and sing a love song. Instead of something fragile, there’s a strength that makes the love all the more real. When they offer, “I know a thing or two/ Don’t need to think twice/ I think that I’ll be loving you all of my life,” you get the feeling that this is the way that love is supposed to be.
In two and a half minutes ‘Parachute’ is a meditation on the nature of love inspired by being under the kind of parachute you used to play with as a child, “My heart inflates like a balloon/ Don’t hold too tight/ Don’t let go too soon.” In that moment there’s an amazing sense of freedom. The kind that is too often impossible to recover as an adult.
Like most of the album, acoustic guitars dominate ‘Fall Before The Climb’. With a strong drumbeat it deals with the human condition and the struggle it entails. The notion Mira maintains is “to lean in — find the beauty there, and let it be something that ultimately allows you to evolve.” That’s where the real education begins and where it finds a way to create transformational change.
For thirty-five minutes Stumbling Home holds you in its thrall. Rather than leaving you breathless, it leaves one refreshed. The Sea The Sea offer the ability to look at the world and see how we can be alive and in love with possibility.