“You’re a Wolf”
from the EP Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low
2007
iTunes
MP3 – “You’re a Wolf” [right-click/save-as]
Los Angeles-based artist Alex Brown Church is Sea Wolf’s songwriter and only invariable member, but he is often joined by cohorts from his previous power pop outfit, Irving, and former Elliott Smith drummer Scott McPherson.
Sea Wolf’s debut, Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low, was recorded partially in Church’s living room and partially with Seattle producer Phil Ek, whose recent projects include Band of Horses and the Shins. The wash of guitar and anchoring cello of “You’re a Wolf” and intimate finger picking of “The Garden You Planted” might evoke either of those band’s subdued moments, but Brown’s cryptic, intimate narratives about gypsies, low tides and wandering strangers are distinctively enchanting.
Church had quite the childhood, spending time in a gold rush California town and in Europe. “When I was 7 or 8, I can’t remember now cause it was so long ago, my parents and I moved to France and lived in a tent on the edge of a forest,” Church says. “I also remember it was near a corn field. Anyway, we lived in this tent for over a year while my mother and nine other women built some structure or building for charity reasons. That’s something I don’t know if I’ve ever told anybody!”