Day 395: First Born Sun – Aquarium Bloom

Every day, I find myself wishing that there was more Mort Garson. Plantasia has been one my favourite albums that I’ve discovered throughout the project, there’s a real purity to it that just makes me happy. When I was told about an album coming out that is inspired by Plantasia, I naturally had to listen to it, so today we’re exploring an up-and-coming Australian artist called First Born Sun.

Album cover courtesy of Dream Like Records

First Born Sun is a solo project by Dave Cina, a Canberra-based musician and animator, who has released five albums so far, all with a different theme – last year, he released a Spaghetti Western-inspired album, while the one before that was psychedelic pop. He’s also recording and producing with other artists, having worked with alt-rock bands The Church and Sunnyboys on Gaslight Puppet Show's album Esoterica last year. His most recent album, Aquarium Bloom, builds on the sound of his debut album as an instrumental synth-based concept album that tells a story of an aquarium.

It starts off as an upbeat telepathic communication between an aquarium keeper and the aquatic life that the person is tending to. At that stage, it’s hopeful and whimsical, kind of sounding like a happy underwater soundtrack to the Moomins. But around the mid-point of the album, the optimism that was the driving force in the beginning slowly starts to die – the attention of the keeper and the connection to the aquatic life starts fading as the aquarium falls into neglect, and the songs start to shift more towards moodier ambient music.

The album is thematically at the complete opposites of the spectrum, starting off bright and hopeful and ending in neglect and death, and First Born Sun’s ability to build the story through only the instrumental soundscapes is great, the vision of the album is easy to follow. I can see the influences of Mort Garson, he also had that interplay between light and dark, as he did arguably one of the happiest albums I know but also several other albums centred around his interest in the occult.

The better half of the album is the second one, especially in the more wistful middle part of the second half with songs like “Sleeping with the Anemone” and “Reflections in Algae” – in the first half, I think I can hear the impact of Plantasia too well, while the second is more unique with a sound that’s fully developed and unique. Not only is it sonically more interesting, but there’s also more emotional depth to it, as that’s where the bulk of the story takes place. It takes a while for the record to find its footing, but once it does, it really takes it up to a new gear.

What I like most about Aquarium Bloom is that it doesn’t really lose its warmth along the way, even on the closing track “Your Body Floating on the Surface of the Tank” – from a storytelling perspective and without having lyrics to use to forward the narrative, the easy thing to do would be to ham it up and go very dark, but First Born Sun avoids that trap and takes a more restrained approach to it, which makes the album that much more impactful and keeps it more in standing with the sunniness of the first part.

I had a good time with Aquarium Bloom. If Plantasia was, as Mort Garson said, warm earth music for plants, this is warm earth music about fish. There’s something very sweet about this one. I’m giving it a 7/10, I’m keen to see which direction First Born Sun goes to next.