After 11-Year Hiatus, Niagara, ON’s A Sea of Gold and Burgundy return with a new EP
After an 11-year hiatus, Niagara Falls, Ontario favorites A Sea of Gold and Burgundy returns with the new EP Ghosts In These Walls, a four-song testament to friendship, forgiveness, and the redemptive power of music. While founding members Carl David Onofrio, Aaron Berger (Blue Stars, BBG, Perpetual Peace Project), and Nathanial Goold (Blackflies, BBG, Electric Wildlife) never stopped writing and performing as members of different bands, the pandemic, along with the sudden death of their former manager, led the group to realize their unique musical chemistry anew. With nearly twenty album credits between them, Ghosts In These Walls is the group’s first release in eleven years.
When traditional venues shut down amid the COVID pandemic, the seasoned multi-instrumentalists re-met at a mutual friend’s house and began to jam together, quickly rekindling the creative sparks that fueled their earlier 2000 incarnation. Soon after, they were tapped to perform at a memorial for their former manager Robin Morse. They officially reunited as A Sea of Gold and Burgundy in March of 2022, performing their first public show in over a decade.
Buoyed by fan requests and recognizing how special such musical bonds can be, it wasn’t long before the trio returned to the studio. Produced by Pete Haverkamp and financed by the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund, the resulting four-song EP finds the trio older, wiser, and reenergized.
“Ghosts In These Walls,” a strummed ode to the healing power of solid friendship, shimmers with Berger, Goold, and Onofrio’s seasoned harmonies and unrushed playing. “Palace of Fates” expresses a more secular view on the mystical, informed by Goold’s growing up — and out of — performing faith-based music. “Lady” is at once upbeat and plaintive, uplifted by piano and tambourine as the trio stretches out the chorus in tight harmony. “Midnight Rain,” the song that Morse once requested to be played at his memorial and which ultimately brought the group back together, plumbs the heart of a late-night thinker as they move toward a state of acceptance.
Listen to Ghosts In These Walls below, and learn more about A Sea of gold and Burgandy via our mini-interview.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
Aaron: We are A Sea of Gold and Burgundy
In terms of style of music, I like folk/gospel to describe our sound—- what do you guys think about that?
Nathanial: I like that or folk spiritual, folk soul. We sing for the people. We are people, and we love people. (Laughs)
Aaron: (To Nathanial) -You were raised playing music in the church. I sang in the church, (To CD) your father was a minister. We want the music to be a blessing
CD: Yup, we experience the music as a blessing, and we want to share it.
Nathanial: I wonder if we could have the songs be an introduction to the readers, like have a link or something. Can we add links to this or a website?
What’s it like being a musician in Niagara?
Nathanial: It’s hard… no… I like where it is on the map —- it’s easy to hit southern Ontario, it’s in a good pocket – you can get to the GTA easily without having to live in it.
Being in Niagara Falls as an artist, there’s a strong arts community —- a lot of people to work with, collaborate with, different energy in the air, with the Falls and the tourists – where you get to play for people who are coming from all over the world even though you’re in your own home town. There are a lot of interesting artists, an array of interesting characters…
Aaron: Compared to a small town, or other small towns, there are a lot more gigs that are available as a musician, with wineries and restaurants. We’ve been working towards a scene where original music is highlighted at more venues. As a musician here, you can get lots of gigs, and many of them want the focus to be on cover music. I guess…
CD: I’m hearing mixed feelings. There’s a tension between the abundance of musical opportunities and a pull to become a certain sort of musical act.
Aaron: There’s a lot of collaboration between groups and between people. So there’s a lot of co-creativity.
CD: and there are a lot of songs in Niagara, waiting to be found and a lot of people writing them down, a lot of songwriters doing good work. Perhaps it’s something in the mist from the Falls and the sound of the Falls themselves.
Aaron: Should we say something about the event we just had?
CD: Yah, what do we want to say?
Aaron: We’re grateful to have the opportunity recently to have our community of fans, friends, and family support us —- a venue in “Camp Cataract” that hosted us in making it happen. What’s it like being a musician in Niagara? For me, it’s best when we have an occasion to work towards and support in making music, both of which we’ve had lately.
Tell me about the first band meeting after splitting all these years ago. What did it feel like?
Nathanial: During our first jam at Camp Cataract —- I thought it was beautiful, but to elaborate, it was nice to come full circle again and to jam and to experience the music of friends who hadn’t played together in a long time, to hear the three of us sing together again
CD: I remember feeling like I was in the audience and experiencing the songs as if they were new —- as an outside entity, even though I was playing. Really, I remember the songs that we used to play in a very visceral way.
Aaron: I felt a renewed appreciation for the songs in general and to be doing what we were doing – and the sense that something that was unresolved had a chance to be resolved —-
Nathanial: I felt old… washed up (laughter)
Who was the first artist to knock you out?
Nathanial: John Fogerty’s energy, charisma, and tone went right through me.
When I first heard a CCR song, I totally wanted to get into it. I wasn’t a musician when I first heard of them, and it made me want to play the drums —- I like the attitude, and the rock’n’roll —- the songs hit me without having to experience them live. They captured my attention without being in a concert setting – the recordings make you feel like you’re at a live show.
I’ve never seen CCR in person, and they’re still one of my favourite bands. It feels like their recordings have the energy of rock’n’roll.
CD: Aaron, do you want to talk about the time you heckled that comedian at Yuk Yuk’s, and he wanted to fight you?
Aaron: (laughs) I don’t know… we love Pilate and followed them around and got to sing on stage with them… first one, do they mean like when you’re a child?
CD: I’m not sure exactly. I suppose you can field it anyway. I remember the build and the choir in “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” really blowing me away as a kid… and I’ve been thinking recently, with Coolio dying, that my brother and I stayed up late at night trying to record “I’ll C U when U get there” off the radio onto tape – but as far as the artist that has endured with me, that’s Van Morrison —- I still can’t figure out “Astral Weeks”
What’s the one album by a Canadian artist that everyone should have in their collection?
Nathanial: On the Beach, Neil Young —- great tones, even spiritual overtones, great guitar work, some of his best songs (lyrically) —- captures his acoustic and electric catalogue… I don’t know… his hair’s good, and the gold jacket he’s wearing on the cover! (Laughs)
CD: “You Forgot it in the People” by Broken Social Scene was a really monumental album for me. It’s a really complete world in itself and encompasses a wide palette of styles, and I associate it with Toronto on its way to being a global music city. What do you think, Aaron?
Aaron: Maybe one of the Leonard Cohen albums. That might be a stereotypical answer.
CD: Cohen’s essential. Do you want to be more specific?
Aaron: (Laughs) one of those, you can’t go without one of those. I remember “Song of Leonard Cohen” being on a lot when I was growing up.
CD: and of course, our new album “Ghosts in These Walls”…
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