"Of course there’ll be a cost // But it won’t be a loss // I’ll jump in the car, give it a spin // I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in // I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in..."
The darkly drawn folk heaviness / alt rock eclipse of "The Me that Waits" by The Cross Sea, a new supergroup comprised of Toronto songwriter Anna Mernieks-Duffield (Beams, Ace of Wands), acclaimed producer Kevin S. McMahon (Swans, Real Estate, The Walkmen), and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Liss, is able to draw us in from the onset with an acoustic progression feathered with dissonance and Mernieks-Duffield's vocal countenance that sounds both pained and spinning and then, soon enough all musical hell breaks loose. In terms of the emotional narrative and genre blending of folk, baroque pop, post rock, alt rock, this is beautiful storytelling that feels cinematic and painted with so many shades while not feeling in the least over produced. When the musical eruptions begin, a mixture of austerity, melancholia and what feels like improvisational rock ferality, like an adjacent amalgam of Kate Bush, Deerhoof, Tropical Fuck Storm.
“‘The Me that Waits’ honours the muse with careful regard, acknowledging that it can be both rewarding and reckless to heed its whispers,” says Mernieks-Duffield. “There are certain risks and sacrifices that come with being an artist, and with making change or disrupting a pattern in general. When I wrote that song, I was choosing to go out on my own and invest money that I didn’t really have into making an album with none of my usual collaborators. I provided a panacea of justifications, but truly, I was just following a wild desire that didn’t exist one moment and then in another heartbeat, became the only reality I could accept.
As much as there is a very practical side to me, it is really just there to stabilize the boat as I rock it, because my inner voice has a far more interesting story to write for me than any outer voice in society has.”
As much as there is a very practical side to me, it is really just there to stabilize the boat as I rock it, because my inner voice has a far more interesting story to write for me than any outer voice in society has.”
The amazing "The Me that Waits" (accompanied by a moody and artful music video created by Jess Price) is the first glimpse of the trio's self-titled debut album, arriving in early 2026.
LYRICS
Of course there’ll be a cost
But it won’t be a loss
I’ll jump in the car, give it a spin
I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in
I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in
And of course there’ll be a cost
But it won’t be a loss
Time plays tricks but this place still feels the same
The closer I get, the chemicals flood my brain
Night slips into something soft to touch
A midnight gown, stretched out on the couch
I feel her presence in a familiar way
Yet I’m still surprised by the way she lays
My pupils dilate hard to let her in
Somehow I know the end’s where it begins
And of course there’ll be a cost
I’ll jump in the car, give it a spin
I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in
I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://thecrosssea.bandcamp.com/album/the-me-that-waits
https://www.instagram.com/thecrosssea/
When wave systems moving in different directions intersect, they create a phenomenon both dazzling and dangerous known as a cross sea. The surface has a mesmerizing appearance, as if quilted by unseen hands, while the depths below are unpredictable. Anna Mernieks-Duffield was out on tour with Ace of Wands when she blew a fuse in her amp. When the repairperson turned out to be Kevin S. McMahon, a producer of some renown (Swans, Real Estate, Pile, Titus Andronicus, The Walkmen), Anna decided to track the next album by her band Beams at Kevin’s studio, Marcata Recording, in New York’s Hudson Valley. She was so captivated with both the experience and the results, REQUIEM FOR A PLANET, she and Kevin became friends and found other ways to collaborate. The Cross Sea represents a new embodiment of this friendship’s collaboration: two wave systems intersecting, with unpredictable results.
Call it kismet: Kevin felt utterly exasperated with several aspects of making music and modern life, while Anna’s pregnancy produced a sense of urgency as a new life force was growing inside her. They were both in that place where many become lost and embittered, a dangerous liminal place of uncertainty between the end of an era and the beginning of something new. The time was ripe for the two to explore something different, with their friendship proving fertile ground to do so. Anna sent Kevin a batch of songs she was working on that didn’t feel right for Beams or Ace of Wands. There was a rawness, immediacy, and intensity to these home recordings that inspired him to layer instrumentation and ideas onto them instead of re-recording them from scratch. A visit from Anna to record more at his studio was joined by another friend of Kevin’s, Daniel Liss, a serendipitous swimming partner from a local mountain spot who had been trying to find his way back into music. His energy, enthusiasm, humility, and light touch helped keep the dangerous part of The Cross Sea in check and the surface dazzle just right.
The resulting album covers a lot of ground in a short time, from buzzy synths to pastoral banjo, from skeletal distorted riffs and vocal conjurings to bedroom lo-fi indie pop, from dueling dobros to bottom-dropping-out fuzz bass attacks. As usual with Anna’s songs, there are no simple three-chord affairs; her searching sound–often with unexpected changes, subtle hooks, and layered vocals–makes every song a journey, catchy and complicated at once. Kevin’s production gives its signature vibe and murk, shot through with moments of crystalline clarity and piercing beauty. Touchstones such as PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, and Big Thief inform the work in non-obvious ways. The immediacy of Anna’s urgently recorded new songs mixed with the well-worn melodies of older songs that never found a home, together with the cosmic timing of their collaboration, creates a compulsively listenable set of new songs that will be a balm to ears of fans of either’s work or a welcome new obsession for the uninitiated.
Of course there’ll be a cost
But it won’t be a loss
I’ll jump in the car, give it a spin
I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in
I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in
And of course there’ll be a cost
But it won’t be a loss
Time plays tricks but this place still feels the same
The closer I get, the chemicals flood my brain
Night slips into something soft to touch
A midnight gown, stretched out on the couch
I feel her presence in a familiar way
Yet I’m still surprised by the way she lays
My pupils dilate hard to let her in
Somehow I know the end’s where it begins
And of course there’ll be a cost
I’ll jump in the car, give it a spin
I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in
I’m taking it back, I’m reeling it in
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://thecrosssea.bandcamp.com/album/the-me-that-waits
https://www.instagram.com/thecrosssea/
When wave systems moving in different directions intersect, they create a phenomenon both dazzling and dangerous known as a cross sea. The surface has a mesmerizing appearance, as if quilted by unseen hands, while the depths below are unpredictable. Anna Mernieks-Duffield was out on tour with Ace of Wands when she blew a fuse in her amp. When the repairperson turned out to be Kevin S. McMahon, a producer of some renown (Swans, Real Estate, Pile, Titus Andronicus, The Walkmen), Anna decided to track the next album by her band Beams at Kevin’s studio, Marcata Recording, in New York’s Hudson Valley. She was so captivated with both the experience and the results, REQUIEM FOR A PLANET, she and Kevin became friends and found other ways to collaborate. The Cross Sea represents a new embodiment of this friendship’s collaboration: two wave systems intersecting, with unpredictable results.
Call it kismet: Kevin felt utterly exasperated with several aspects of making music and modern life, while Anna’s pregnancy produced a sense of urgency as a new life force was growing inside her. They were both in that place where many become lost and embittered, a dangerous liminal place of uncertainty between the end of an era and the beginning of something new. The time was ripe for the two to explore something different, with their friendship proving fertile ground to do so. Anna sent Kevin a batch of songs she was working on that didn’t feel right for Beams or Ace of Wands. There was a rawness, immediacy, and intensity to these home recordings that inspired him to layer instrumentation and ideas onto them instead of re-recording them from scratch. A visit from Anna to record more at his studio was joined by another friend of Kevin’s, Daniel Liss, a serendipitous swimming partner from a local mountain spot who had been trying to find his way back into music. His energy, enthusiasm, humility, and light touch helped keep the dangerous part of The Cross Sea in check and the surface dazzle just right.
The resulting album covers a lot of ground in a short time, from buzzy synths to pastoral banjo, from skeletal distorted riffs and vocal conjurings to bedroom lo-fi indie pop, from dueling dobros to bottom-dropping-out fuzz bass attacks. As usual with Anna’s songs, there are no simple three-chord affairs; her searching sound–often with unexpected changes, subtle hooks, and layered vocals–makes every song a journey, catchy and complicated at once. Kevin’s production gives its signature vibe and murk, shot through with moments of crystalline clarity and piercing beauty. Touchstones such as PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, and Big Thief inform the work in non-obvious ways. The immediacy of Anna’s urgently recorded new songs mixed with the well-worn melodies of older songs that never found a home, together with the cosmic timing of their collaboration, creates a compulsively listenable set of new songs that will be a balm to ears of fans of either’s work or a welcome new obsession for the uninitiated.
The Cross Sea, Toronto songwriter Anna Mernieks-Duffield (Beams, Ace of Wands), Kevin S. McMahon (Swans, Real Estate, The Walkmen), folk, indie rock, alt rock, post rock,
"The Me that Waits" (Official Video),
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