Well, as has often been the case, our entire direction has changed since the last update. I’ll attempt to illuminate it all without too much confusion.

• We’re currently finishing off a track that Michael and I have been working on for an anti-republican compilation being put out by the local label: Ladies Choice Records. It’s slated for release in late summer, 2007.
• We’re also working on a ‘drumless’ acoustic set that we’re pulling some songs from for an EP on Sinister Records in the next few months. There’s a good chance we’ll play a few, smaller shows with this stripped down set, but it’ll be awhile before we get it all worked out.
• If you’ve been following our on-goings at all, you’ll know that we’ve been sitting on 8 songs that we recorded with Joey on drums last year. Though it’s still just in a conceptual state, my hope is to release 2, limited 7” vinyl singles with 4 songs from that session between them. If we can’t find anyone willing to press such a thing, we’ll take it on ourselves, but I imagine it won’t see release until early 2008 - at best.
• I can finally announce that we’ve got a new drummer and should have a new practice space within a week or two. Andrew Gormley, the engineer on last year’s final recording session with Joey has an impressive history behind the drums and has agreed to help us carry on with our new material. Much like Joey, Andrew has been playing in heavier bands since the late 80’s and is one of the few people I can think of who is skilled enough to help us pick up where we left off. Andrew has drummed for: Rorschach, Die116, Kiss it Goodbye, Today is the Day, Shai Halud and most recently, Playing Enemy. If you’re familiar with any of these bands, you’ll believe me when I say; our next release will be on an entirely new level.
• Finally - I've added New Roman Twilight reviews from Profane Existence #53 and Drop Dead Magazine #2 to our Reviews page.

And that’s that – marching into summer…
~Isaac

Thankfully, New Roman Twilight continues to creep around and has garnered a review on the Lithium Radio site. It can be found here:
http://www.lithiumradio.net/

Looking for a copy of our recent CD - New Roman Twilight? Click either the Sinister Records or CDBaby links found above.

Looking for mp3’s? 2 songs from New Roman Twilight can be found on our Multimedia page while selections from the ‘vault’ can be found scattered throughout our Discography page. If you’d like to hear something new, there’s a live version of Comfort in the Cold on our Myspace page. The full studio EP of the same is what we’re working on now. I’ll post a song from that as soon as we get some decent mixes.

Lastly, I’ve added links to lyrics under their relative track listings on our discography page.

~Isaac

After nearly 10 months of spinning in different directions, I can finally say that we’ve got ourselves on track again. Michael and I are about half way through composing a quieter, synth/acoustic set, while at the same time, Joey has returned from touring with the Prids and we’ve started playing with him again. We’ll be ready for live shows with Joey by the end of January, but our other set probably won’t be up and running until Spring.

As for our next release: We were initially planning an EP, but with only a few more months of work, we can easily crank out a full length. So we’re going for it. We’ll finish that release with Joey and then follow it up with some of the music Michael and I are working on separately. I can imagine us bunny-hopping like that for a while to keep things interesting.

During the summer we received an email about submitting a song for the Lunar Hypnosis web compilation. We wrestled with something new for awhile, then a remix, finally we decided to give them Closing In, the last song on New Roman Twilight. It landed in the midst of some eerie noise projects and black metal bands and was released in early fall. Though we're an odd fit stylistically, the comp works quite well as a whole. It’s still available, for those of you brave enough. ;)
The Unscathed Pulsation of Decay

In other news, New Roman Twilight is getting reviewed in the January issue of Drop Dead Magazine. There’s also been talk for several months now of doing an interview with them and it looks like that might happen sometime soon. The last issue has a write up on us that I've posted in our Reviews section, but the current review won't be posted until it's been in print for a month or so. Drop Dead Magazine is printed in color with high quality photography and tons of great reviews and write-ups. We encourage anyone reading this to check out their website and track down their magazine. Here, I’ll make it easy on you:

Drop Dead Festival
Drop Dead Magazine on Myspace
Drop Dead Festival on Myspace

After nearly 2 and a half years in the band, Joey Maas has moved on to drum for the Prids. They'll be touring through the second half of 2006, so be sure to shower Joey with cheap beer if they come through your town.

In light of this recent development we've decided to knock down some walls and try a new approach to our sound. We haven't decided exactly on how to go about it, but we've started by bringing on our friend Russ Vanover of A Strange Wednesday. Russ helped us engineer New Roman Twilight last year and has been close to the band for quite awhile now. As tempted as i am to talk about what we're starting into, I'll save it until we're a little further along.

While all this has been going on, we've been given a kind write-up in the latest issue of Drop Dead Magazine. There's been talk of a possible interview in a future issue, but in the meantime, we're highly appreciative of the write-up. If it's not available at a store near you, you can order it direct from their site - Drop Dead Magazine. Drop Dead also puts on a music festival on the East Coast; you can check out who's playing and when on the dedicated website: Drop Dead Festival For even more info, check out their MySpace sites: http://www.myspace.com/dropdeadmagazine http://www.myspace.com/dropdead_festival

To wrap things up, we're about half way through recording the last 8 songs we wrote with Joey. Our friend Andrew Gormley recorded drums and guitar for us at Red Room Studios in Seattle and we're going to slowly finish it off on our own over the next few months. More info on that can be found in our Discography

~Isaac

September 14th 2005

At long last, New Roman Twilight has been released! It has 9 tracks running just over 40 minutes in length with a 3 page lyric book and full color layout. We pressed 1000 of them to get things rolling. Hopefully we'll be pressing more before too long.

If you'd like to order a copy online, please visit:

Deep Blue Recordings
If you live in the Seattle area and would rather just pick one up at a store, they're currently available at:
Easy Street Records (Queen Anne)
Musicwerks
Wall of Sound
Everyday Music
Zion's Gate
Singles Going Steady

Yes, it's true; the site will be getting a complete overhaul soon. In the meantime, I'll continue updating it with live shows and anything else that seems worthwhile.
~Isaac

July 11th 2005

Our first full length release: "New Roman Twilight" will be sent off to the presses within the week and we'll begin pushing it around to different distributers within a month's time. Other than that, we just got back from another fantastic show in Portland (thanks Mell!) and there's talk of a split 7" vinyl release with Desiderata (from Portland) that we'll be working on soon.

As far as the new website goes, it's going to be a little while. These things take time and we're looking to do something completely different, so hang in there. I should also point out that the final versions of the free mp3's on our Music page have been uploaded. The mixes are slightly different and the mastering is infinitely better, so go get em. As for upcoming shows, a few are in the planning stages, but nothing is set in stone just yet. Check back soon.

~Isaac

March 16th 2005

• At long last, final versions of two songs from our forthcoming release: New Roman Twilight have been uploaded to our Music page. The rest of the songs are going through the final mixing stages and should be ready for the presses by the end of March.
  
• In the next week or so a Merchandise page will be added to our site. We plan on adding all kinds of items in the following months, but for now we'll just be selling our two different shirt designs. Check back soon if you'd like a shirt!
  
• We've started a MySpace account! Add us as a friend and you'll be better kept up to date with current on-goings. Click HERE to go directly our page.
  
• We've got 3 shows coming up in the Seattle area, please visit our Live page for more info.

~Isaac

February 23rd 2005

Due to health and visa complications, the shows with HaWthorn, Sieben and Waldteufel have been cancelled. Our apologies to those of you who were looking forward to seeing these bands; hopefully they'll give it another try when their troubles have cleared up.

In other news:

• New Roman Twilight should be finished and ready for the presses in about a month's time. It's turned out to be quite an undertaking and getting it polished to our liking has taken longer than planned. I can assure you though; it'll be well worth the wait!
  
• In the next few days a Merchandise page will be added to our site. We plan on adding all kinds of items in the following months, but for now we'll just be selling our two different shirt designs. Check back soon if you'd like a shirt!
  
• We've started a MySpace account! Add us as a friend and you'll be better kept up to date with current on-goings. Click HERE to go directly our page.
  
• The Prids, The Arid Sea and C'est la Mort will be playing at the Funhouse on April 4th. Visit our Live page for more info.
  I believe that's all for now…

~Isaac

February 4th 2005

We're pleased to announce that two shows with Sieben and Waldteufel have been confirmed for Seattle and Portland in early March (HaWthorn has cancelled). For further details, check our Live page.

Also, we'd like to point out the addition of two new tracks to our Music page from our forthcoming release: New Roman Twilight. The full release will be available for purchase in spring. For you interested types, lyrics for the two songs can now be found on our Lyrics page.

~Isaac

September 23rd 2004

Now that summer is gone we've got ourselves rolling on a number of projects:

• We've started recording a full length that should be finished by mid to late winter. Its tentative title is: New Roman Twilight

• A single shirt design has been getting pressed on small, medium and large sizes. Ask us about it at live shows if you'd like to purchase one.

• Stickers should be along sometime soon. We'd sent off a design to get printed several months ago but 'sticker-guy' apparently doesn't want business, so we've taken ours elsewhere.

• Though we've been laying low in regards to live performances lately, a few are creeping up on us. Find out the when, where and with whom on our Live page.

• We are currently working with Brian Hodges of The Blue Hour to get HaWthorn ((Ex)-Members of Sol Invictus, Death in June and Current 93) a show here in Seattle sometime in March 2005. If all goes well, we'll be opening that show along with The Blue Hour (that is if Brian can take a break from winning million dollar lawsuits).

• And one last thing, I finally finished rewriting our History page.

I'd also like to give much thanks to Heiko in Hamburg, Germany for some long distance QA work on our site. He managed to find a severe security problem that could've ruined many things had the wrong person discovered it. We'll have many free things for you Heiko if we ever make it to Germany.

~Isaac

October 4th 2004

Photo by Poul Costinsky

For the next couple of months we'll be concentrating primarily on recording our new full length. Though we've got a show at the Mercury in October and several other floating offers, we're hoping to keep live performances to a minimum until our recording is finished and we have some new material. In this time we'll also be printing shirts, posters and several different sticker designs. If you're interested in purchasing such a thing, come to a live show or check back here in the next month or so. We'll be working out a way to sell it all online.

In other news: Our sound has changed dramatically since we first started out and it's become increasingly difficult to fit a flute into the mix. We initially addressed this by asking Jeri if she would play a bit more on the keyboard (which she accepted gracefully), but it was by no means her native instrument and it began to seem more unfair than realistic. So after much consideration, Jeri has stepped away from being a constant member of the band. Talk of a more flute friendly acoustic side project has been going on and will most likely start up once our recordings are finished; so don't think you've heard the last of her. That being said, i'd like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for the time she's put toward The Arid Sea and to wish her the best in the days to come!

As for site updates:

• The Guest Book link has returned (I unwittingly deleted it during the last update).

• Pictures from our show at The Mercury (courtesy of Poul Costinsky) can now be found via a link on our Live page or by clicking on the picture above.

• Apologies - I still have not rewritten the History section. If you see me out and about town, buy me a beer and i'll invent for you a colorful excuse not even remotely grounded in reality.

~Isaac

May 24th 2004

Welcome to the new site! It's not all that different from our previous site, but it is at least slightly more visually stimulating. We've also done a bit of streamlining:

• The Reviews section has been temporarily removed due to a lack of anything pertaining to the current band (which is vastly different from any previous incarnations).

• The Members section has been removed until we get some pictures taken and get around to writing our personal bios.

• The History section is being completely rewritten and will be back within the next week or so. There was a bit too much rambling, and in my opinion, not enough info on the current lineup.

• A Contact page has been added for anyone wanting to book shows with us or get a hold of specific band members.

• The Live page is now displaying upcoming show info as well as archiving info and images from past shows.

In other news: We're currently gearing up for recording a full length release that will hopefully be available by the end of summer. We've also been working on some T-Shirt and Sticker designs that should be available along side our 6 song demos by the time we play our next show.
Some photos were snapped by the very talented Poul Costinsky at our Mercury show earlier this month and can be viewed\purchased here.

~Isaac

February 13th 2004

See The Arid Sea live at 2nd Ave. Pizza in downtown Seattle on April 2nd (more info on our new Live page).

This last month has been an exceptionally busy one for us. Besides practicing like mad, we played our first show on the 7th of February at the Catwalk here in Seattle. We started off the night at about 9pm with an 8 song, 40 minute set. We were followed by a burlesque act called Glitzkrieg who were then followed by Abney Park. Some pictures of our performance can be seen in the new Images section of our site.
In the days leading up to the show we managed to finish mixing and mastering our six song demo. We then hastily assembled a package for it and made 80 copies over the course of an evening. For anyone interested in acquiring one, they're currently available only at our live shows. If we get to where we're mailing them out, i'll post info on how to get one here on the News page of our site.

During the last month we also came to the conclusion that we'd rather have a simple Guest Book than a full-blown Message Board on our site. Unfortunately we didn't switch out the old EZboard soon enough and our trial version ran out. After this occurred I found that I kept getting unwanted pop-up ads whenever I was on the internet. I did some investigating and figured out that the expired version of the EZboard was installing a hidden pop-up generating program on the computer of anyone who looked at it. If you looked at our EZboard in the last several weeks, you too have this little demon on your computer. My apologies; I had no idea such a thing would happen. I have however figured out what company made it and how to remove it from a computer. I've put together a little page about it all right here.

I should also mention that the Links page has finally begun to grow and many of the people who've helped out along the way are represented there. If you are one of these people, please let me know if there is anything you need me to change about the picture used for your link or the location it's linking to.
And finally, since we've finished the mixing and mastering of our demo, slightly better versions of the four free mp3's can now be found on our Music page. We pulled some bass out of the first 3 tracks and remastered them at a louder volume. The fourth track (Passage) had a little bass put back into it and was also remastered at a much higher volume.

As always, if there are any problems evident in this new site update, please feel free to email me at Isaac@thearidsea.com . Thanks!

~Isaac

January 12th 2004

This new site update contains some fairly significant changes:

• We wont be selling any Merchandise online for at least a little while, so I've removed that page until it becomes relevant.

• The Contact page has also been removed since both the Members page and the Message Board serve that purpose well. I'm also planning on adding an info@thearidsea.com link to a top corner of each major page in the next update

• A Lyrics section has now been added to accompany our upcoming demo tracks as well as some older releases.

• A Reviews section has also been added for several older reviews and with the hope that some newer ones might come along.

In the next week or so I plan to get some work done on the Links page as well as get started on the Members page. As always, if there are any problems evident on any of these pages, please feel free to email me at Isaac@thearidsea.com

~Isaac

January 6th 2004

Getting the message board going has been the main focus for the last few days. Figuring out what forums should be added, what info should be here, what info should be there. I'm thinking for now that I'll summarize any noteworthy events here on the home page and put any further details on the message board.
So with that said, Michael and I straightened up several of the tracks on our demo recordings today. I went into an obscene amount of detail about it in the Recording News forum. So if you're feeling so inclined, you can get the low-down there.

Our demo should be finished in about two weeks. Some of it will appear for download here on the site. It will be for sale in it's entirety at our live shows.

What live shows? We're pretty much ready to play out as of my writing this. We'll begin seriously pursuing that in February.

~Isaac

January 1st 2004

After many long years of solitary effort and short-lived collaborations, The Arid Sea is at last a functional band. The lineup being: Michael Guillory on bass, Joseph Maas on drums, Jeri Kay playing flute/keys and Isaac Aubrey singing and playing guitar. Our chemistry thus far has been remarkable, opening up the project in such a way that we're all able to express ourselves freely within it. The Arid Sea has been completely and wonderfully reborn!

Practicing since late September of 2003, we've managed to record demos for 6 songs and have nearly 10 songs ready to play live. Several of the demo tracks will be available for download on our Music page by mid January and by February we'll begin playing live in the Seattle area.

The momentum of this project has been incredible over the last few months and the completion of this website has suddenly become very important. The site is rather skeletal at the moment, but the next few months will see many additions and changes. If there are any problems apparent on any of the pages, please feel free to email me: isaac<at>thearidsea.com.

In the meantime, I've written a rather lengthy History for the project and have uploaded some older songs to the Music page. Hopefully this will hold you all over until we flesh out the site a little further. Thanks for the visit!

~Isaac

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