Merchant by Sean La'Brooy

Sean La’Brooy is an Australian sound artist and composer currently based in New York, who’s work traverses ambient, jazz and electronics.

With this release, Le’Brooy has hooked up with the Scissor and Thread label to put out Merchant - five pieces of dreamy, abstracted and genreless music featuring his distinct style of harmonically complex pads mixed with jazz-influenced instrumental melodies and solos.

Snow Storm starts the journey, coupling field recordings with snippets of half heard jazz and wandering percussion.

Cargo locks into a wonky groove early on and allows various synth and piano fragments to add and flow through the track.

Pilot is a track that also finds an off kilter groove, embellished with dubbed out percussion by fellow Australian Joseph Batrouney and samples.

Storage too features a guest - the drummer Leo Yucht, resulting in a skittering breakbeat intertwined with live percussion, airy pads and smudges of piano to build a rich atmosphere.

The closing piece is Helipad, a dubby bassline providing the anchor for the skipping, glitchy rhythm and light as a feather melody.

As Sean explains, “the purpose of this record was to create five tracks that each feel unique and distinctive from each other while still maintaining a common thread that connects them all to the same place. All my favorite records have a certain distinctiveness across each track that ties them together to create a sort of family of works. I think if you can achieve that cohesion, you’ve made a great album.
With Merchant, I’ve tried my hardest to establish a unique identity while featuring 5 tracks that feel totally different at the same time. Different concepts, genres, tempos, instrumentation, still with a red thread to connect them all. In my mind, those commonalities are defined by a particular mood or sentiment, the use of playful melodies, and a reliance on acoustic rhythms throughout”.

Artwork by Ziyu He