Billington Sea Launches Debut Album

Locally grown, critically acclaimed singer/songwriters Jake Hill and Hayley Sabella debuted their duo act’s premiere album today, to be performed in concert tonight at the Billington Sea CD Release Concert, Saturday, January 31, 8 pm at Spire Center for Performing Arts, 25 ½ Court Street, Plymouth.

A spellbinding blend of rootsy folk with country undertones, Billington Sea’s self-titled EP delivers an atmospheric debut drawing from the sensible musicality of Hayley Sabella threaded with the raw lyrical style of songwriting storyteller Jake Hill. The stumbled-upon namesake album is born from the duo’s impulse to musically unite land to people, paying homage to their roots of historic Plymouth Massachusetts. Swooning and introspective, the twosome use thoughtful wordplay, mindful, panoramic imagery and nostalgic folk melodies to comment on the good and evil of the eternal human condition. Seamlessly melded vocals evoke the feeling of eras past while crafting it together with memorable stories of the modern age. Sharp lyrics and complimentary guitar styles resonate in the legend of one local pond, which is scattered amongst the hundreds of fishing holes and summertime swimming spots that speckle the geographic and songwriting landscape of their hometown.

Originating from each musician’s admiration for the other’s craft, Hill and Sabella have long lived in close proximity but only discovered their compatible singer/songwriter similarities over a growing friendship during the last few years. They’ll joke in conversation that “we’re just two goofballs who get together to write songs and competitively show off,” but upon a good listen, their songs immediately reveal underlying gifts through the use of language, lyrics and composition. Being well established as individual singer-songwriters, Billington Sea’s new self-titled EP showcases what happens when the two come together: Jake’s talent for storytelling and Hayley’s sense of musicality meet in the middle, and in a very natural way, takes on a distinctive identity all its’ own.

The band’s name, paralleled in the EP title Billington Sea originates from the story of a very real pond, one of 365 scattered across their beloved hometown of Plymouth, thanks to Mayflower passenger Francis Billington. As legend has it, the scandalous drunkard lived a disgraced life amongst fellow Puritan settlers, escaping his dubious reputation in England. Once lost and inebriated in the Plymouth woods for hours, he climbed a tree to gain better perspective of the forested horizon. Spotting a large body of water in the distance, Billington erroneously assumed he had discovered the Pacific Ocean. The Puritans seized the opportunity to tease him for generations to come by marking the pond on their map, ‘Billington Sea: in memory of his error’. “This anecdote really won us over,” shares Sabella, “The story itself, along with its’ wonderful and very likely embellishments resonated with us.”

Billington Sea is recorded by Anchour Studio, produced by Josh Ray and Karl Anderson and engineered by Zach Laskowki. In addition to Hill and Sabella on guitar and vocals, the album features Cameron Lopez and Danny McKellick on percussion, Karl Anderson on keys, Mike Burd on upright bass and Josh Ray on bass guitar.

Tickets for the Billington Sea CD Release Concert are $10, and are available at www.spirecenter.org. The Billington Sea EP will be available on January 31 at iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and on site at the Billington Sea CD Release Concert. To learn more about Billington Sea music, visit billingtonsea.bandcamp.com/album/billington-sea.