Ocean Versus Daughter set to perform at Radio Room
GREENVILLE – The music of Ocean Versus Daughter is so appealing on the surface that the lacerating lyrics to the songs on their 2011 album, "Slightly Parted," might not register on first listen. The band, led by singer/keyboardist Flanna Sheridan, weaves slow building, hypnotically insistent melodies out of just a few instruments, while Sheridan's airy, angelic voice skates over the top, granting a deceptively serene tone to her sometimes bluntly heartbroken lyrics.
The band formed in 2009, under somewhat unusual circumstances. "I'm from Virginia originally," Sheridan says, "but I moved to Prague in the Czech Republic in 2004. I started writing songs there when I was in college. I lived in a music house; it was just a house with a lot of musical instruments in it. And the people that were coming over to play them were these amazing jazz musicians, and they intimidated the (expletive) out of me. They could just yell these letters and numbers at each other and play a whole song. And I don't read music. So I kind of kept my songwriting under wraps. But I eventually realized that it was what I wanted to do. I might not be a classically trained pianist, and I might not know all the jazz terminology, but these are my little stories, and I want to tell them."
Sheridan started the band in Prague in 2009. "I moved back to Virginia last year, and picked up where I left off with different musicians," Sheridan says. "It's a new formation, but they're great musicians and I'm really blessed to play with them. It's funny; we toured Europe last month, and the old band showed up to see the new band. It was a nice continuation."
The band, which can expand from a keyboard-and-bass duo to a quartet that includes drums and a cello depending on the show, doesn't worry about recreating their somewhat dreamlike, delicate sound onstage. "If you feel like the audience is receptive to what you're saying, then you can feel like you're really telling your story," Sheridan says. "If they aren't, then you kind of go inside yourself and find the story you created in the first place. Sometimes translating that to an audience isn't the easiest thing to do, but when they're really listening, you can see it in their eyes."
Sheridan says that the band's lineup occasionally confuses those used to more conventional instrumentation. "We don't have a guitar, which throws a lot of people off," Sheridan says. "It's a bit of a different set up. But I try to write songs that connect with people. I try to write about stuff that people go through."
The band is currently working on a new album, which will be produced by Rob Girardi, who worked on the first two Beach House albums. Sheridan says that Ocean Versus Daughter's music has changed, and it's not just because of the new lineup. "I think that your songs are a reflection of where you are in your heart," she says, "and on the first album, my heart was broken. And that's okay. That's where I was at the time. But now my heart is NOT broken. Things are pretty good. So the songs are happier. And a few of them are more about things outside of my own life and my own stories. Some of them are dark stories, but they're other people's dark stories (laughs)."
Who: Ocean Versus Daughter Where: The Radio Room, 2845 N. Pleasantburg Drive, Greenville When: 9 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 8 Info: 864-236-7868