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Nick Leese of Heyday Mail Order in London, England has included “Memory & Desire” on his Top 10 of 2014 list!

Below is a writing/review of the album he wrote on his music blog a couple of months ago. Here’s a link to his blog.

Cheers Nick!

White Sails

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27.11.14

A CDR of the new White Sails album ‘Memory & Desire’ landed here a couple of weeks back. It’s expected for release pretty soon, so watch this space!

This is one beautiful piece of work!

It did take me a few listens to get into, mainly because White Sails are a very subtle listening experience. Nothing immediate hits you when you first hear something new by them. Everything appears understated. Listen more though and a whole other world slowly begins to open up!

Firstly, Ville Vilpponen’s guitar playing on ‘Memory & Desire’ is not only economical, but wonderfully fluid, weaving in and out of Leigh Gregory’s vocals and gentle drumming by brother Jaakko. After a few spins I was following the guitar lines totally track after track. This is the type of guitar playing I admire most. Inventive and meaningful without ever overdoing it. There’s also some nifty keyboard fills too, here and there, which I’m sure Ville is responsible for as well. A master craftsman.

Now back to Leigh Gregory’s vocals, not much louder than his speaking voice, but all the time drawing the listener in. Nowhere in the lyrics is there anger or bitterness, there’s always hope and love, without sounding trite. It might be a little ‘hippie’ to say all this, but it’s quite refreshing to hear actually. ‘Dream Of Flying’, ‘Come In From The Storm’, ‘And You And I’ – all wonderfully lyrical and uplifting!

Favourite track? ‘Cities Of The Plain’ – this wouldn’t sound out of place on ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ by The Triffids. Yes, it’s that good!

Oh, there’s also a beautiful instrumental to kick back too as well – ‘Lifelines’ . Listen and weep!

Thanks again guys, it’s been a long month for one reason or another, grey skies, rain, blah, blah blah…but ‘Memory & Desire’ has made it all bearable.

If you’re also in the mood for something to ‘listen’ to, you can’t go wrong with ‘Memory & Desire’.

New album shocker

Big news today… We have finished our second full-length album titled “Memory & Desire”. Took a couple of months longer to complete the work than we had anticipated since we decided to include a 10th song at the 11th hour. We are very pleased with the results and look forward to getting this music out there in the world. Special thanks go out to our friends in Seattle, Matt Brown and Levi Seitz for their great work (in mixing and mastering respectively). 

Track listing is as follows:

1. Dream of Flying
2. Come in From The Storm
3. Lost Again
4. October Fields
5. Lifelines
6. And You And I
7. Under a Northern Sky
8. In The Blood
9. Cities of The Plain
10. Sensations

Total running time: 39 minutes plus change

We’ll probably start streaming the album soon (watch this space), the digital and physical release dates are still tbd (possibly around Halloween for digital, CD mid-November…?). Hope everyone’s well and getting ready for the Winter. I know I am… Cheers, Ville / White Sails

Hey Guys,

Here’s a selection of the latest write-ups of White Sails and their debut. The album’s been getting quite a lot of praise on the internet, and we hope you’ll visit these cool e-zines/blogs that have been kind enough to write about the band.

http://www.isthismusic.com/white-sails (review of the album)
http://rocksucker.co.uk/2013/05/showcase-white-sails.html (showcase/interview)
http://seesound.co.uk/reviews/white-sails_white-sails (another review)

You can find more under our Press-tab. We’ll keep posting future reviews there as well.

Also, there’s a White Sails instrumental EP coming out on 7″ vinyl this fall!!! The four song record consists of two White Sails originals and two – unlikely and fascinating – cover songs. We’ll give you more details about that project a little later.

Thanks!

If you’d like to purchase a digital copy of White Sails’ debut album, it’s now available on iTunes, follow this link.

We are happy for our new collaboration with Levykauppa Äx, a Finnish record store that now carries Ruska Records releases in all of their branches! You can find all kinds of cool rarities on their shelves – no matter what genre – and they support small record companies and bands. Very nice! So if in Finland, go visit and check out what they got to offer.

Also, White Sails’ first music video Seaside is up on our youtube channel. We dig it, and hope you’ll enjoy it too!

More news soon, stay tuned!

The mixes for White Sails’ self-titled debut are finished! This is exciting to us all here at Ruska. The mastering date is tomorrow (12/28/2012) and we’re looking at a mid-January release date. The track listing is as follows:

1. The Turning of the Tide
2. Dare to Shine
3. Slipping Away
4. All of My Days
5. Years
6. Departed
7. By Your Side
8. Sunday Afternoon
9. Just One Wish
10. Seaside

Also, the band will start shooting a video for the song “Seaside” in the first week of 2013. Watch this space for developments!