Musician Miles Cooper Seaton was the co-founder of the experimental rock outfit Akron/Family, formed in the early 2000s, after Seaton moved from Seattle to Brooklyn and ended up living with his soon-to-be bandmates, Seth Olinsky, Ryan Vanderhoof, and Dana Janssen. By 2004 they’d attracted the attention of Swans’ Michael Gira, who signed them to his Young God Records. At the same time, they were serving as the backing band for Gira’s other project, Angels of Light, which had just released a new album, The Angels of Light Sing “Other People.” An Akron/Family and Angels of Light split album was released at the end of 2005. Over the next several years, Akron/Family remained consistently busy, dropping new albums one after the other. Seaton’s cause of death was a single-car crash on I-5 near Fresno, California on February 17, 2021 and it’s still unclear what exactly was wrong with the truck Seaton was driving when the crash occurred. The newest release from Il Sogno Del Marinaio is not just 'A Tribute to Miles Cooper Seaton,' but also a labor of love and further development of the tendencies of that the artist and composer had been exploring through his life.

This recording on 7" vinyl (also digital) is three tracks - "Vecio" [by Andrea Belfi] on the A-side, and "Once We Spoke About Horns" [by Stefano Pilia], "The Man Next To Me In The Van" [by Mike Watt] on the B-side. All tracks are very short with the A-side song coming in at 4:13 and the total time on the B-side just a few seconds longer. "Vecio" offers a nice percussive groove with some minimal guitar and electronics. Watt noodles on a repeated bass riff. "Once We Spoke About Horns" might be more what fans of Il Sogno del Marinaio expect, settling in to some abstract ensemble playing that threatens to develop into something else, but never does. Watt's "The Man Next To Me In The Van" is a low-key funky jazz extrapolation with Watt repeating the title as lyrics and adding "...is gonna listen". This one I really liked for the atmosphere as well as the execution. While I wouldn't consider these great songs, I think that it's great that these guys went out of their way to pay tribute to a generally obscure musician, If you're a fan of Il Sogno del Marinaio or Akron/Family you really have to buy this 7" (comes in either orange or black vinyl) limited to 500 copies each. Ten bucks won't kill ya. If you're a hardcore fan, they have a test pressing for $50.00, and only one of those left.