Return to the Enchanted Sea Fest
Ruminations on the music, the people, and the experience.
It was still dark out when the barrage of alarms I had set assaulted my ears. One after the other. A new alarm each minute. Screeching. Chiming. Blaring. The siren of a nuclear plant meltdown. It took seven of them for me to accept my fate. It was Saturday, April 26th and I had an exciting but exhausting day ahead. After a few months of waiting, it was finally the day of the inaugural Return to the Enchanted Sea Festival where an ambitious fourteen bands from all around the east coast were converging on a backyard in rural Asheboro, NC for over eight hours of noise.
The day started with a quick shower. I packed a cooler of water, Gatorade, and Red Bull and loaded it with all of my gear into a borrowed Jeep then headed to pick up a friend who was tagging along for the day. While waiting for her to get ready, I meandered into a marginally evil chain bookseller and grabbed a collection of short stories and essays I had been meaning to read. Even though I practically never find the time to open them, I always have some book or a couple of comics with me at our shows. I think it's some sort of security blanket; a safe space that I can hide in if the anxiety sets in or the environment gets overwhelming. The next stop was picking up another friend in Durham on the way to the festival.
We grabbed a coffee on the way out of town, my third of the day at roughly 10:00 am, and the three of us drove the miserably unscenic sprawl of I40 between Durham and Greensboro. Talking about music, listening to a shuffle of proto-punk greats like the Stooges and Modern Lovers, and taking in the grotesque view of car dealerships, outlet malls, driving ranges, and a FedEx distribution center.
I ran into Kohai Lovingood, who drums in Flora In Silence and plays in several other bands, at a show back in January. I mentioned to her that the band I play in, Pipelayer, would love to come out to the Triad area to play with Flora in the future and she told me that she had something in the works that we would be welcome to participate in. A week or two later I found out the full scope of what Flora In Silence had been working on…
Booking a show is a big undertaking. Booking a show with more than a dozen bands, multiple vendors, and not knowing how the turn out will be is maybe as formidable a task as you can take on. Lovingood and Flora In Silence guitarist Brandon Morgan might have bitten off more than they could chew with this event, but their dedication to the DIY music community and the connections they had built through their involvement with this scene carried a lot of the weight for them.
“Despite all the complications and setbacks encountered during the planning of the Fest, friends and family united to create a wonderful space for these insanely talented artists to display their creative gifts,” said Morgan when reflecting a few days after the event.
A last minute venue change and an ever shifting forecast for storms had me going into the day feeling very anxious. Its my fatal flaw. I worry a lot and desperately struggle with things I don’t have control over. The weather, other people… Once I got there and started interacting with the members of the other bands that tension eased drastically. There’s something that I don’t talk about a lot with my friends and bandmates. It’s that I typically hate playing gigs. I love being in a band, though in the case of Pipelayer it is a difficult but necessary exercise to create the music and visual art we put out. Don’t get me wrong… I love the twenty to thirty minutes where I’m performing and I love meeting people and catching up with friends but the process of loading gear, the driving, the logistics and business and politics of being in a band are often fucking miserable to me. I didn’t have that on this day. Everyone I spoke to was enjoying themselves and happy to be there and I had such a genuinely fun time hanging around and watching so many fantastic bands.
While I have seen and/or played with Fest openers Barrow a handful of times in the past year it never gets less impactful to me. Their records were a strong emotional anchor experience to me in my mid twenties and now, having become friends with their current iteration, each time I get to see them perform their swirling and frantic form of post-hardcore feels like a treat because it is honestly something I once thought I would never see again.
While unloading our gear, I caught a glimpse of Life practicing in the shed where gear was stored and band members hid from the sun. When their many members took the staging area I was blown back by the intensity of their performance and the cacophony of voices. There’s something remarkable to the idea of laying such harrowing music out for people in broad daylight, on a makeshift stage, in the middle of nowhere. Putting yourself out there without the cover of darkness, without the detachment of the lights and bars takes a dedication to your art. You truly must shake off the pretense of rock and roll and play your heart out in these circumstances.
I watched New York’s Irata from the “side stage” as we prepared to set up our gear. Their drummer impressed all the members of Pipelayer with an incredible display of dynamics, guiding the band through the rise and fall hallmarks of the emotional hardcore, and provoking the growing crowd to movement. I downed my Red Bull, my fifth and final highly caffeinated beverage of the day, and stretched my hands in the shade as they wrapped up their set. There’s a moment right before every set I play where it’s almost like I’m going to die. My heart races, my vision gets blurry, and my mind becomes blank. I set up the gear and get my area of the stage ready almost on autopilot or as if I’m a puppet being controlled by some unseen force that isn’t me.
In truth, I’m always totally worried about how Pipelayer will be received. We’re a relatively new band and I think we stuck out like a sore thumb on this bill. I pushed that down while we played our two-song twenty minute set. I allowed myself to get lost in the music and let the roar of my amps, the crashing complexity of Graham’s drums, and the breeze from the box fan carry me. As we’ve found our footing as a band I’ve realized that I work best when I’m calm and focused on playing. I don’t make a spectacle of myself. Our bassist Nate, however, plays the perfect foil as a man possessed. His normally composed and understated demeanor sheds completely as he stalks the stage, rips his microphone from the stand, and ends by throwing his bass onto the ground. Like I said, these twenty to thirty minutes are typically the only part of being in a band that I enjoy. As we built the cathartic post-rock inspired ending of our new song “Heal” to its inevitable crescendo, the clouds opened up and dropped a brief downpour on everyone. The timing turned one of the biggest fears of the day, being rained out, into a beautiful moment of release for me.
In the comedown from our set and the dash to get our gear out of the way, I unfortunately missed the majority of Samskara’s set. Their blackened grinding take on the genre was impressive considering they played as a three-piece. Normally such a wall of sound takes much more to create. We set our merch up next to Samskara when we arrived and I spent the day trying to place their guitarist and vocalist Billy’s face. It was wild to me when I eventually recognized him as someone that I knew nearly two decades prior, when we were fresh faced college students bumping into each other at shows in my hometown in southern Virginia. “Hell yeah, you’re alive!” he told me when we connected the pieces of our shared past. It’s a beautiful thing to see how, for many of us in the punk rock world, our lives keep running parallel to each other, and even after losing touch for something like twenty years, a show or festival can bring us all right back together.
I was beyond impressed with amorebeautifulversionofyou’s set. It’s rare to see such confidence and talent on display from such young musicians. Their music blurs the borders between screamo, metalcore, and alternative rock in a way that defies both their brevity and their age. It was a treat to see them in this environment. In the wake of their newest EP, I anticipate that they’ll generate a lot of buzz. Now is a great time to start paying attention.
I mostly observed Philly’s entries to the Fest from the merch table while I enjoyed the ridiculously delicious, fresh baked pizza. Kiande Amehda showered the crowd with intense, spastic, aggression. Their most memorable moments occurred as the bassist threw themselves into the crowd without regard for their own safety. Mt. Ida were some of the nicest folks to interact with through the day, even loaning us some cables we needed. Of all the bands on the fest, perhaps Mt. Ida best exemplifies the bridge between the old guard of screamo and the new generation. Their music is technically dense, emotionally taxing, and does a remarkable job of balancing memorable intricacies with raw aggression.
I caught my second wind as the Garden State’s Burial Dance set up. Their performance was tight, explosive, and somehow seemed much, much louder than everyone else up to that point. I can always tell for certain that a band is firing on all cylinders when I see my bassist Nate intently staring at them, studying them, trying to identify what special something is making it all happen. I caught a glimpse of Nate locking in on Burial Dance and knew that he was thinking the same thing I was, and I suspect many other musicians there were thinking; “I wish I was in this band.”
I met the folks in Serrate, from Asheville, when we played together back in January. There was an immediate camaraderie there and one of the driving factors in Pipelayer accepting the offer to play this fest was the opportunity to hang with Serrate for the day. We did get a lot of quality hangs in but the fifteen or so minutes that they played were everything you’d want from this band of veteran players. Intensity cranked to eleven, lost in the moment, a palpable release of anger, despair, and hope. If amorebeautifulversionofyou represent the future of the genre, and Mt. Ida are the bridge, then Serrate would be one of the shining examples of a generation of emocore kids who grew up being inspired by the classics giving it another (perfectly executed) go before their time in the sun fades. Their upcoming LP is something wonderful and special that you will want to be tuned in for.
I have similar feelings about Greensboro’s ythgrp. Such kind and genuine people that it was lovely to finally meet after communicating online for a while. I had been highly anticipating their set on the back of if i don’t leave, i’ll never leave, which gripped me earlier in the Spring. They played just as the sun was lowering behind the treeline, vocalist Dave Phillips’s hair whipping around as ythgrp unleashed one of the most raw and frenetic sets of the day. I’d like to give a special shoutout to bassist Andrew Timmons for providing so many of the wonderful photos you’ve seen through this piece.
What is there to say about Flora In Silence? They’re the folks who made this all happen. Brandon and Kohai not only did the work of booking, promoting, and executing on everything that happened here, with Brandon’s house serving as the backup when the original venue fell through, but Flora In Silence were the glue that connected all of these groups to the friends, family, and fans who showed up. The sun had gone down, the lamps had been lit, and for the first time after knowing and enjoying this band for over a year I finally got to experience it live.
Other than as a way to communicate amongst others, I’ve never seen the level of micro-genre labelling that happens within DIY music communities as very useful. That’s partly because it only tells people something about the sound if those people are already relatively familiar with this world. There’s a second reason though, which is that the truly special bands, which I count Flora In Silence amongst, are capable of blending and disregarding such labels and making a product better than the sum of its parts. From the wailing reckless abandon of the vocals and the math rock inspired technicality of the guitars to the metal tinged hardcore of the rhythm section, this set encapsulated the personalities and tastes of the members and showcased Flora In Silence as a singular band. The linchpin of both this festival and of this level of post-hardcore in the region.
As the night fell and the fatigue set in it became time to head home and rest in preparation for a recording session that I had planned the next morning. I sadly missed Stress Spells and Ostraca; however, not wanting to leave them out, I solicited Brandon Morgan for his perspective on their sets.
“Stress Spells just plain fucking rip,” he said. “They are the type of band that inspire you to go home and practice your instrument so that you can try to be on their level. The night of the fest they did not disappoint. They showed up with enough energy and intensity to keep the crowd moving at the end of a long day in the hot Carolina sun.”
I was particularly bummed to miss Ostraca though, as we had listened to a portion of their recently released Eventualities on the way to the festival and I was taken aback by their ability to build tension and ambience then use their music synthesize a cathartic experience from a limited number of instruments and voices. While I mentioned earlier that I felt Pipelayer stuck out like a sore thumb, Ostraca were the band that helped me feel comfortable in playing on this lineup knowing that while our guitar tones or musical identities may be slightly different from the others we were all essentially doing the same thing: trying to find a release in the noise.
“I am still amazed that Ostraca was cool enough to come play a random backyard in North Carolina shortly after being signed to Persistent Vision Records and only a few weeks before their first tour in Asia,” said Morgan. “I understand the hype and believe they are genuine with their DIY ethos. In my eyes, they have fully earned the acknowledgement and respect they are currently receiving.”
“My worst fears for the day manifest with the sudden blast of a siren and blue lights only two songs into Ostraca’s set,” he continued. “The cops had finally arrived at the end of the day and refused to leave until the instruments were turned down. Unfazed, Ostraca was able to continue playing as Gabe commented ‘The sign of a good compromise is that both parties are unhappy with the outcome’ [but] I still feel that we got the better end of that deal [because] Ostraca was able to finish their set.”
And with that the day came to a close. Many people chose to camp in their vehicles and tents in Brandon’s back yard; my crew drove a few hours back east after stopping for food at the traveling musician’s cultural mecca that is Sheetz, and then, with tired eyes and tired minds, we slept. In the weeks since I’ve felt like something had been missing. I’ve wondered what it might be like to repeat such an experience every week, every month, five times a year, whatever… It occurs to me writing this that is why the lifers do this, why the smallest festivals and the most hardcore touring bands continue to make it happen. We’re a community of friends, families, and artists who maybe don’t always feel right in our day to day lives but know that in the woods of rural North Carolina, or in the deserts of California, or the farmlands of Upstate New York, or wherever else these celebrations of honest, evocative art happen we are home.
“Watching the Fest unfold the way it did was one of the most impactful moments of my life,” said Lovingood. “Seeing months of hard work, major setbacks being overcome, and the music I have spent years of my life dedicated to help blossom in my own community truly helped me see my place in this world.”
“In the end, I feel this fest exemplified the quintessential spirit of the DIY community in its purest form,” added Morgan. “Musicians from all over the East Coast traveled to Nowhere, North Carolina simply possessed of their desire to share their art with anyone willing to listen to their raw expression of emotion.”
“I’m excited to utilize the skills and lessons learned from this experience so that we can make next year’s festival even better,” continued Morgan. “The joy and gratitude I witnessed on the faces of everyone at the festival will sustain hope in my spirit for a long time to come.”
The overwhelming sentiment shared between the crowd and the bands as we talked that day was a general disbelief at the embarrassment of riches that Return to the Enchanted Sea provided. Fourteen fucking bands and not a single dud. Maybe we didn’t create a revolution, maybe we didn’t draw a thousand people to this backyard, but we all collectively laid the groundwork for this to continue to grow. We left the ember that will keep smoldering until it burns again next time, and while doing that we solidified the network for all of these bands to showcase their art from New England all the way down to Florida and beyond.
“I specifically want to thank everyone that has ever been to a Flora In Silence show,” concludes Lovingood. “Without you, we would never have had the opportunity to give back. Putting on shows is only to give back to the community, never to take from it.”