Great Skies: "Festival"

Great Skies’ recent EP, Summer Moments, sets out its stall right from the first song. “Like All Good Summer Moments” is a perfect opener because, as its title suggests, it shines, it glistens, it inhabits a window of time unburdened by external pressures, and it represents a period of bliss infinitely better experienced than described. This theme of photographing elusive, specific-to-moment feelings also pervades each of the three tracks that follow, and the whole EP provides timely insight in that respect.

I recently read a sociological journal by scholars from Massachusetts and Southampton which debated the accepted position that ephemerality leads to an inability to forge identities—in this instance within the context of social networking/online forums. The authors pointed to the convincing examples of Facebook and 4chan’s /b/ as communities where online cultures can thrive despite the disappearance of material sometimes posted merely hours before. Great Skies’ music seems to mirror this position, arguing that ascribing the facet of ephemerality to a time or event makes it no less worth recording. Whoever it is exactly behind the project chooses to stretch themselves a little further than a lazy chillwave aesthetic of specific nostalgia, dwelling within a general event or location now remembered, rather than longing after a variety of possessions, former lovers, or drugs.

With all that said, “Festival” arguably becomes a little too intimate to be described as a wider picture. Where the Sigur Rós song of the same name exudes grandeur and majesty, evoking giant Chinese carnivals, fireworks, and awestruck audiences, Great Skies speak more of an overcast five days in southeastern Britain: camping, unhurried acoustic singalongs, wellies. The smooth, intertwining synths form layers within which specific memories comes to rest, and the stretched-out vocal sample, barely punctuated, reverberates even further underneath the effected guitar line. Everything serves to portray a time where identity is created not in spite of, but through its ephemeral nature.

And while I don’t believe it is the case, there is the small possibility that because I too harbour the desire to recreate those fleeting festival memories, I could be over-relating. Great Skies recognise that often the times we spend longest trying to recall are those that eat into our day-to-day existence, and try to provide a platform whereby we can look back and actually benefit from doing so. I may have returned this summer with only muddy clothes, sunburnt forearms, and a semi-permanent “I Heart Dubstep” tattoo, but hell, does this song make me realise how great it all felt at the time.